Impact model: VISIT-LCFire

ISIT-LCFire is a fire model incorporated into the VISIT (terrestrial ecosystem model). The model simulates four types of vegetation burning—non-peat fires, agricultural fires, land-use change fires, and peat fires—as well as ground burning. The basic schemes for vegetation burning were developed by Park et al. (2021, 2023), based on the Community Land Model (Li et al., 2012; 2013).

ISIMIP3b

Person responsible for model simulations in this simulation round

Chaeyeon Park: park.chaeyeon@aist.go.jp, 0000-0002-5641-892X, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan)

Additional persons involved: Akihiko Ito

Output Data

Experiments: (*) ssp370_ssp370soc-noadapt+magpie_default, picontrol_2015soc_default, picontrol_histsoc_default, ssp126_ssp126soc-adapt+magpie_default, ssp585_ssp585soc-noadapt+magpie_default, ssp370_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, ssp370_2015soc_default, historical_histsoc_default, ssp126_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, historical_2015soc_default, ssp126_ssp126soc-noadapt+image_default, ssp126_ssp126soc-adapt+image_default, ssp126_ssp126soc-noadapt+magpie_default, ssp370_ssp370soc-adapt+magpie_default, ssp585_2015soc_default, ssp370_ssp370soc-noadapt+image_default, ssp585_ssp585soc-adapt+image_default, picontrol_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, ssp585_ssp585soc-adapt+magpie_default, ssp126_2015soc_default, ssp585_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, ssp585_ssp585soc-noadapt+image_default, ssp370_ssp370soc-adapt+image_default
Climate Drivers: GFDL-ESM4, IPSL-CM6A-LR, MPI-ESM1-2-HR, MRI-ESM2-0, UKESM1-0-LL
Date: 2025-10-02

Basic information

Model Version: VISIT-LCFire1

Model Output License: CC0

Simulation Round Specific Description: The VISIT-LCFire1 model has been updated from the version described in Park et al. (2023), and a new manuscript using this version will be submitted soon.

Reference Paper: Main Reference: Park C, Takahashi K, Li F, Takakura J, Fujimori S, Hasegawa T, Ito A, Lee D, Thiery W et al. Impact of climate and socioeconomic changes on fire carbon emissions in the future: Sustainable economic development might decrease future emissions. Global Environmental Change,80,102667,2023

Resolution

Spatial aggregation: boxes

Horizontal resolution: 0.5°x0.5°

Vertically resolved: No

Temporal resolution of input data: climate variables: monthly

Temporal resolution of input data: co2: annual

Temporal resolution of input data: land use/land cover: annual

Temporal resolution of input data: soil: monthly

Additional temporal resolution information: GDP and population : annual

Input data

Simulated atmospheric climate data sets used: MRI-ESM2-0, IPSL-CM6A-LR, MPI-ESM1-2-HR, UKESM1-0-LL, GFDL-ESM4

Emissions data sets used: Atmospheric composition (ISIMIP3b)

Socio-economic data sets used: National historical Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (ISIMIP3b), Population (national and gridded; historical and future)

Other human influences data sets used: Historical, gridded land use

Other data sets used: Lightning (ISIMIP3b)

Climate variables: hurs, tas, pr

Additional information about input variables: wind speed

Spin-up

Was a spin-up performed?: Yes

Spin-up design: A 500-year spin-up was performed, with the first spin-up year initialized as 1601

Natural Vegetation

Natural vegetation partition: Each grid cell is assigned a single dominant natural vegetation type.

Natural vegetation dynamics: no dynamics

Natural vegetation cover dataset: SAGE (Global Land Use Database)

Fire-specific input data sets

What is the time step of the fire model?: monthly

What is the time step of the exchange between fire and vegetation model? e.g. are carbon pools and cover fractions updated every day?: monthly

Burnt Area

What are the main components of burned area computation?: non-peat fire, agricultural fire, land use change fire, and peat fires are calculated and then summed.

Ignition

Which sources of ignition are included?: human ignition (population density), lightning

Is fire ignition implemented as a random process?: no

How are natural ignitions implemented? which data is used and how is it scaled?: Natural ignitions are computed as a function of lightning frequency, latitude, and a scaling coefficient (cloud-to-ground rates).

Is human influence on fire ignition and/or suppression included? how?: Human-induced nitrogen input is calculated as a function of population density, with higher density leading to more potential ignitions. Fire suppression is represented by the fraction of human-ignited fires that are prevented, decreasing with lower population density.

If human ignitions are included for which conditions are the ignitions highest/lowest?: Around 20~40 population density (persons/km²) has highest human ignition

Spread and duration

How does fire spread?: Fires spread in an elliptical shape at a rate affected by wind speed, population density, and GDP per capita.

How is fire duration computed?: We assumed fire duration is 24 hours.

Fuel load and combustion

How does the model compute fuel load?: Fuel load of vegetation burning is aboveground biomass including leaf, stem, root, and litter.

List of fuel classes (full names and abbreviations): leaf, stem, root, litter, and soil

Is fuel moisture linked to soil moisture/air humidity/precip?: fuel moisture is linked to soil moisture, relative humidity, and air temperature.

Which carbon pools are combusted?: Carbon in leaf, stem, root, litter, and soil are combusted.

Is the combustion completeness constant or depends on what (fuel type, moisture?): Combustion completeness are varied depending on soil moisture, fuel type, and vegetation type.

Landcover

What is the minimum/maximum burned area fraction at grid cell level? over which time period?: 0 to 100% over a one-month period.

Land-cover classes allowed to burn: All land-cover classes allowed to burn except for water and ice.

Is burned area computed separately for each pft? if not how is burned area separated into the pft-burned area?: Burned area was computed separately for each PFT.

Are peatland fires included?: Included

Are deforestation or land clearing fires included?: Included

How are pastures represented?: Pastureland include rangeland and managed pasture.

If croplands burn, does the fire model differ for this pft? if yes please describe.: Fire model differs in cropland, calculated by cropland fraction, socio-economic impact functions, and fuel load. In addition, when a grid cell that was forest is converted to cropland is considered a target of land use change fires.

If pastures burn, does the fire model differ for his pft? if yes, please describe: Pastures are considered only when a grid cell that was forest is converted to pasture (land use change fires).

Fire mortality

Vegetation fire mortality: is it constant/constant per pft/depends on (for instance fire intensity, bark thickness, veg height): Vegetation fire mortality is constant per PFT and fuel type.

Model output specifications

How to calculate global annual total outputs: To calculate the annual value, download the monthly gridded ‘burntarea-total’ file and sum the monthly values for the specific year