There are four types of restart datasets generated by the model; master, primary, secondary, and history buffer restart files. Each is only meant to be read by the model. These files contain grid-point data and other information necessary to continue a run. The "restart pointer" file is simply an ASCII text file that holds the full pathname of the most recently written master restart file.
Master and primary restart files are are always written. Secondary restart files will be written only if the timestep when restart files are written corresponds to a timestep where absorptivity/emissivity calculations will not be performed and absorptivity/emissivity grid-point values need to be saved. History buffer restart files are written only if a history file (either primary or auxiliary) is not written on the same timestep as the primary restart dataset. Only the name of the master restart file is needed as input for a continuation run. The model is able to determine other required restart files (i.e. primary, secondary, etc.) from data saved on the master restart file.
All restart files have root names of the form ccmr_yyyymmdd_sssss, but with different suffixes appended. In the root name, yyyy corresponds to the year, mm is the month, dd is the day and sssss is the seconds of the date yyyymmdd. Suffixes for primary restart files appear as uppercase letters, such as ".A",".B", etc. Secondary restart files have lower case letters as suffixes, such as ".a", ".b", etc. History buffer restart files have an ".h0" appended to the root name, followed by an integer, such as ".1". The first auxiliary history file will have a .ha appended followed by an integer, and so on. The following is an example of the restart files written during a simulation.
Questions on these pages can be sent to... erik@ucar.edu .
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