Foresters need a way to rapidly tell, for any tree species, how much risk it might have from climatic shifts that may happen in the future.  To estimate these risks for each tree species, one would have to have a way to first estimate the current geographic range or spread of that tree species, and then, for a particular predicted future climate, estimate the new, adjusted geographic range for that same species in the future.  Then we could compare the two geographic ranges to gauge the impact that the climatic change had had on that type of tree.  Of course, many other factors in addition to climate, like soils, topography, amount of sunlight would also have to be considered in estimating these species' present and future geographic ranges.  
The ForeCASTS project, which stands for "Forecasts of Climate-Associated Shifts in Tree Species," was designed to make and compare the present and future ranges of tree species, in order to estimate their risks from climatic changes.  ForeCASTS can also subdivide the risks into different types of risk.  For example, the size of the tree's range might get smaller in the future, posing one kind of risk.  Or, the future range might not overlap spatially with the present range, making it harder for the trees to physically reach their new growing places.  Different types of climatic risk might be helped differently by forest managers; by physically transporting tree seeds or seedlings, for example.
ForeCASTS can map ranges and estimate the different kinds of climatic risks very rapidly, and without any species-specific adjustments.  Therefore, ForeCASTS can be used to examine many hundreds of tree species.  We have used the ForeCASTS system to generate a future climate atlas that contains present and future maps for 325 different tree species.  The ForeCASTS analyses are global in extent, but concentrate on including most North American tree species.