Simulations were run starting from an arbitrary initial ecosystem state (initial conditions) with the forcing functions for the year 2004. The boundary conditions for all pelagic state variables as a function of time, longitude, latitude and depth at the open borders of the spatial domain are provided by ERSEM-GETM for the North Sea. 

The Wadden Sea model results shown in Wadden Sea Dynamics and Wadden Sea Aggegrated are from a run with the system in a dynamically steady state in which the differences between the initial and the final state of nearly all state variables are small. In order to reach a such a repeating annual cycle the simulations were repeated 20 times, with the final state of the previous simulation serving as the initial state of the next run.

Dynamics

The viewer Wadden Sea Dynamics shows some model results. In order to transmit a feeling for the dynamics in the whole system we present a number of movies that show aspects of system behaviour as they evolve in space and time. The model is still under development and the dynamics shown here will not necessarily coincide completely with observable reality. The results presented here represent only a small sample of the full set of simulation results. We have limited ourselves to some examples of what we consider to be the central features of the model. Using movies as the output medium, results can be shown in 2 space dimensions over time, which then represents the third dimension.

Aggregated

We also present aggregated results  in the viewer Wadden Sea Aggregated which give a summary of the dynamics by presenting graphs of annual averages of a variety of state variables and processes. This way of presentation clearly illustrates the large spatial variability in the Wadden Sea for most biotic and abiotic conditions.