Methodology

Climate Change Projections for the Verisk Wildfire Model for the United States were developed by estimating changes in annual burn area for different climate scenarios. The statistical dependence of annual burned area on seasonal VPD and precedent precipitation was quantified using statistical models trained on historical data. Future changes in VPD and precipitation under each SSP were then estimated using the downscaled, bias-corrected outputs from six GCMs. Combining future changes in climate with the statistical models provided estimates for future changes in annual burned area which were used to resample the U.S. Wildfire Model catalog of events. The year and event combinations in the resampled catalogs are the basis for the mapping files¹ for the Climate Change Projections. Key aspects of the methodology are described in detail below.