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Chandler Haukap edited this page Jan 31, 2020 · 2 revisions

Overview

When STEPWAT2 begins a simulation it must establish all species from scratch. This means that the first 50 to 100 years of the simulation do not reflect steady-state conditions for the plant community. From a research perspective, these initial years are useless because they to not reflect real-world landscapes. This problem can be remedied using Spinup.

Spinup is an option to allow plants to establish and grow before the actual simulation starts. In essence this module behaves exactly the same as a traditional model run, except no disturbances are allowed and no statistics are collected.

Spinup is currently only available for gridded mode. You can turn on it on in the grid setup file.

Customizing Spinup

There are two ways to customize Spinup:

  1. The number of years Spinup runs is specified in the grid setup file.
  2. The Species that are turned on for Spinup can be modified in the Spinup Species file