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Impact model: CLASSIC

Sector
Fire
Region
global

The Canadian Land Surface Scheme Including Biogeochemical Cycles (CLASSIC) simulates the exchanges of energy, water, carbon, and momentum at the earth's surface. CLASSIC is formed by the coupling of the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM). CLASS simulates the fluxes of energy, water, and momentum. CTEM simulates biogeochemical cycles including fluxes of carbon.

Information for the model CLASSIC is provided for the simulation rounds shown in the tabs below. Click on the appropriate tab to get the information for the simulation round you are interested in.

Person responsible for model simulations in this simulation round
Sian Kou-Giesbrecht: sian.kougiesbrecht@gmail.com, 0000-0002-4086-0561, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (Canada)
Output Data
Experiments: ssp585_2015soc-from-histsoc_2015co2, ssp585_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, picontrol_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, historical_histsoc_default, ssp126_2015soc_default, ssp370_2015soc_default, picontrol_1850soc_default, ssp585_2015soc_default, historical_2015soc_default, picontrol_histsoc_default, ssp370_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, ssp126_2015soc-from-histsoc_default, ssp585_2015soc_2015co2, picontrol_2015soc_default
Climate Drivers: GFDL-ESM4, UKESM1-0-LL
Date: 2022-10-25
Basic information
Model Version: CLASSICv1.4
Reference Paper: Main Reference: Joe R. Melton, Vivek K. Arora, Eduard Wisernig-Cojoc, Christian Seiler, Matthew Fortier, Ed Chan, and Lina Teckentrup et al. CLASSIC v1.0: the open-source community successor to the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM) – Part 1: Model framework and site-level performance. Geoscientific Model Development,13,2825–2850,2020
Resolution
Spatial aggregation: regular grid
Temporal resolution of input data: co2: annual
Temporal resolution of input data: land use/land cover: annual
Temporal resolution of input data: soil: constant
Input data
Land use data sets used: Historical, gridded land use
Other human influences data sets used: Nitrogen deposition (ISIMIP2)
Climate variables: huss, tasmax, tas, tasmin, rlds, rsds, ps, pr
Spin-up
Was a spin-up performed?: Yes
Spin-up design: The spin up was 400 years.
Natural Vegetation
Natural vegetation partition: - Land cover is from the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI), see https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-219-2018. Crop area is set according to the 5 crop land use classes data provided and natural PFT area is proportionally scaled. As the fractional coverage of the crop PFTs changes in a grid cell, the fractional coverage of the non-crop PFTs in the grid cell is changed in proportion to their existing values. See Wang et al. (2022).
Natural vegetation dynamics: NA
Natural vegetation cover dataset: - Land cover is from the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI), see https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-219-2018.
Soil layers: There are 20 soil layers starting with 10 soil layers of 0.1 m thickness, gradually increasing to a 30 m thick soil layer for a total ground depth of over 61 m.
Management & Adaptation Measures
Management: N fertilisation.
Extreme Events & Disturbances
Key challenges: NA
Fire-specific input data sets
What input datasets are used in the fire model and what are they used for?: - Population density and lightning timeseries.
What is the time step of the fire model?: - 1 day
What is the time step of the exchange between fire and vegetation model? e.g. are carbon pools and cover fractions updated every day?: - The time step of the fire and vegetation models are the same.
Burnt Area
What are the main components of burned area computation?: - Daily burned area is assumed to be elliptical and is based on the fire spread rate (described below) and the properties of an ellipse. Daily burned area is calculated given fire ignition probability and fire extinguishing probability.
Ignition
Which sources of ignition are included?: - The probability of fire due to the presence of an ignition source is influenced by both natural (lightning) and anthropogenic agents (either intentional or accidental, dependent on population density).
Is fire ignition implemented as a random process?: - No.
How are natural ignitions implemented? which data is used and how is it scaled?: - The probability of fire due to the presence of an ignition source is influenced by both natural (lightning) and anthropogenic agents (either intentional or accidental, dependent on population density).
Is human influence on fire ignition and/or suppression included? how?: - The probability of fire due to the presence of an ignition source is influenced by both natural (lightning) and anthropogenic agents (either intentional or accidental, dependent on population density). Fire suppression is also dependent on population density (which determines fire extinguishing probability).
If human ignitions are included for which conditions are the ignitions highest/lowest?: - Fire probability due to ignitions caused by humans increases with increasing population density following Kloster et al. (2010).
Spread and duration
How does fire spread?: - The fire spread rate in the downwind direction is dependent on wind speed and the effect of rooting zone and duff soil wetness.
How is fire duration computed?: - Fire duration is calculated using the fire extinguishing probability which increases with increasing population density.
Fuel load and combustion
How does the model compute fuel load?: - Fuel load is computed with aboveground biomass available for sustaining a fire (which includes the green and brown leaf mass, stem mass and litter mass.
List of fuel classes (full names and abbreviations): - Green and brown leaf mass, stem mass, litter mass, and root mass.
Is fuel moisture linked to soil moisture/air humidity/precip?: - Fuel moisture is calculated using the soil wetness of the first soil layer.
Which carbon pools are combusted?: - Green and brown leaf mass, stem mass, litter mass, and root mass.
Is the combustion completeness constant or depends on what (fuel type, moisture?): - Combustion completeness depends on PFT-specific combustion factors per component (leaf, stem, root, litter).
Landcover
What is the minimum/maximum burned area fraction at grid cell level? over which time period? : - The minimum burned area fraction of a grid cell is 0 and the maximum burned area fraction of a grid cell is 1 (calculated daily).
Land-cover classes allowed to burn: - All natural vegetation PFTs are allowed to burn. Crops are not allowed to burn.
Is burned area computed separately for each pft? if not how is burned area separated into the pft-burned area? : - Burned area is computed separately for each PFT (using PFT-specific maximum fire spread rate from Li et al. (2012)). The area burned is extrapolated for a PFT to the whole grid cell using the area of the grid cell, and the fractional coverage of the PFT.
Are peatland fires included?: - No.
Are deforestation or land clearing fires included?: - During land use change, deforested biomass is divided into three components: (i) the component that is combusted immediately and which contributes to atmospheric CO2, (ii) the component that is left as slash or used for pulp and paper products, and (iii) the component that is used for long-lasting wood products.
How are pastures represented?: - Pastures are not represented.
If croplands burn, does the fire model differ for this pft? if yes please describe.: - Crops do not burn.
If pastures burn, does the fire model differ for his pft? if yes, please describe: - Pastures are not represented.
Fire mortality
Vegetation fire mortality: is it constant/constant per pft/depends on (for instance fire intensity, bark thickness, veg height): - Litter generated by fire is based on PFT-specific mortality factors, which reflect a PFT’s susceptibility to damage due to fire.
Person responsible for model simulations in this simulation round
Sian Kou-Giesbrecht: sian.kougiesbrecht@gmail.com, 0000-0002-4086-0561, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (Canada)
Output Data
Experiments: obsclim_2015soc_default, counterclim_histsoc_default, counterclim_2015soc_default, obsclim_histsoc_default, obsclim_histsoc_nofire
Climate Drivers: GSWP3-W5E5
Date: 2022-07-26
Basic information
Model Version: CLASSICv1.4
Model Output License: CC0
Model Homepage: https://cccma.gitlab.io/classic_pages/
Reference Paper: Main Reference: Joe R. Melton, Vivek K. Arora, Eduard Wisernig-Cojoc, Christian Seiler, Matthew Fortier, Ed Chan, and Lina Teckentrup et al. CLASSIC v1.0: the open-source community successor to the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM) – Part 1: Model framework and site-level performance. Geoscientific Model Development,13,2825–2850,2020
Resolution
Spatial aggregation: regular grid
Temporal resolution of input data: co2: annual
Temporal resolution of input data: land use/land cover: annual
Temporal resolution of input data: soil: constant
Input data
Observed atmospheric climate data sets used: GSWP3-W5E5 (ISIMIP2a)
Land use data sets used: Historical, gridded land use
Other human influences data sets used: N-Fertilizer (ISIMIP3a), Nitrogen deposition (ISIMIP2)
Climate variables: huss, tasmax, tas, tasmin, rlds, wind, rsds, ps, pr
Spin-up
Was a spin-up performed?: Yes
Spin-up design: The spin up was 400 years.
Natural Vegetation
Natural vegetation partition: - Land cover is from the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI), see https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-219-2018. Crop area is set according to the 5 crop land use classes data provided and natural PFT area is proportionally scaled. As the fractional coverage of the crop PFTs changes in a grid cell, the fractional coverage of the non-crop PFTs in the grid cell is changed in proportion to their existing values. See Wang et al. (2022).
Natural vegetation dynamics: NA
Natural vegetation cover dataset: - Land cover is from the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI), see https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-219-2018.
Soil layers: There are 20 soil layers starting with 10 soil layers of 0.1 m thickness, gradually increasing to a 30 m thick soil layer for a total ground depth of over 61 m.
Management & Adaptation Measures
Management: N fertilisation.
Extreme Events & Disturbances
Key challenges: NA
Fire-specific input data sets
What input datasets are used in the fire model and what are they used for?: - Population density and lightning timeseries.
What is the time step of the fire model?: - 1 day
What is the time step of the exchange between fire and vegetation model? e.g. are carbon pools and cover fractions updated every day?: - The time step of the fire and vegetation models are the same.
Burnt Area
What are the main components of burned area computation?: - Daily burned area is assumed to be elliptical and is based on the fire spread rate (described below) and the properties of an ellipse. Daily burned area is calculated given fire ignition probability and fire extinguishing probability.
Ignition
Which sources of ignition are included?: - The probability of fire due to the presence of an ignition source is influenced by both natural (lightning) and anthropogenic agents (either intentional or accidental, dependent on population density).
Is fire ignition implemented as a random process?: - No.
How are natural ignitions implemented? which data is used and how is it scaled?: - The probability of fire due to the presence of an ignition source is influenced by both natural (lightning) and anthropogenic agents (either intentional or accidental, dependent on population density).
Is human influence on fire ignition and/or suppression included? how?: - The probability of fire due to the presence of an ignition source is influenced by both natural (lightning) and anthropogenic agents (either intentional or accidental, dependent on population density). Fire suppression is also dependent on population density (which determines fire extinguishing probability).
If human ignitions are included for which conditions are the ignitions highest/lowest?: - Fire probability due to ignitions caused by humans increases with increasing population density following Kloster et al. (2010).
Spread and duration
How does fire spread?: - The fire spread rate in the downwind direction is dependent on wind speed and the effect of rooting zone and duff soil wetness.
How is fire duration computed?: - Fire duration is calculated using the fire extinguishing probability which increases with increasing population density.
Fuel load and combustion
How does the model compute fuel load?: - Fuel load is computed with aboveground biomass available for sustaining a fire (which includes the green and brown leaf mass, stem mass and litter mass.
List of fuel classes (full names and abbreviations): - Green and brown leaf mass, stem mass, litter mass, and root mass.
Is fuel moisture linked to soil moisture/air humidity/precip?: - Fuel moisture is calculated using the soil wetness of the first soil layer.
Which carbon pools are combusted?: - Green and brown leaf mass, stem mass, litter mass, and root mass.
Is the combustion completeness constant or depends on what (fuel type, moisture?): - Combustion completeness depends on PFT-specific combustion factors per component (leaf, stem, root, litter).
Landcover
What is the minimum/maximum burned area fraction at grid cell level? over which time period? : - The minimum burned area fraction of a grid cell is 0 and the maximum burned area fraction of a grid cell is 1 (calculated daily).
Land-cover classes allowed to burn: - All natural vegetation PFTs are allowed to burn. Crops are not allowed to burn.
Is burned area computed separately for each pft? if not how is burned area separated into the pft-burned area? : - Burned area is computed separately for each PFT (using PFT-specific maximum fire spread rate from Li et al. (2012)). The area burned is extrapolated for a PFT to the whole grid cell using the area of the grid cell, and the fractional coverage of the PFT.
Are peatland fires included?: - No.
Are deforestation or land clearing fires included?: - During land use change, deforested biomass is divided into three components: (i) the component that is combusted immediately and which contributes to atmospheric CO2, (ii) the component that is left as slash or used for pulp and paper products, and (iii) the component that is used for long-lasting wood products.
How are pastures represented?: - Pastures are not represented.
If croplands burn, does the fire model differ for this pft? if yes please describe.: - Crops do not burn.
If pastures burn, does the fire model differ for his pft? if yes, please describe: - Pastures are not represented.
Fire mortality
Vegetation fire mortality: is it constant/constant per pft/depends on (for instance fire intensity, bark thickness, veg height): - Litter generated by fire is based on PFT-specific mortality factors, which reflect a PFT’s susceptibility to damage due to fire.




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