Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived vegetation fraction data were used to update the boundary conditions of the advanced research Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to assess the influence of realistic vegetation cover on climate simulations in southeast Australia for the period 2000-08.Results show that modeled air temperature was improved when MODIS data were incorporated, while precipitation changes little with only a small decrease in the bias.Air temperature changes in different seasons reflect the variability of vegetation cover well, while precipitation changes have a more complicated relationship to changes in vegetation fraction.Both MODIS and climatology-based simulation experiments capture the overall precipitation changes, indicating that precipitation is dominated by the large-scale circulation, with local vegetation changes contributing variations around these.