LANDFIRE ›› Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q.	What about climate change?

We recognize that climate change and climate variability can play a critical role in defining reference conditions. Experts can document how contemporary climate change trajectories might affect vegetation conditions where they have data. Climate variability is often reflected in the frequency of other disturbances (such as the effects of El Niżo on fire frequency in the Southwest) and so is captured in the probability of those disturbances. VDDT models also allow managers to test alternative climate scenarios and climate variability. LANDSUM (Keane and others 2002) integrates climate variability into spatial simulations of reference conditions, thus climate variability is addressed to some degree.

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Keane, R.E.; Parsons, R.; Hessburg, P. 2002. Estimating historical range and variation of landscape patch dynamics: limitations of the simulation approach. Ecological Modeling. 151: 29-49.