  In this work, we show that, due to the alternating orientation of the spins
in the ground state of the artificial square spin ice, the influence of a set
of spins at a certain distance of a reference spin decreases faster than the
expected result for the long range dipolar interaction, justifying the use of
the nearest neighbor two dimensional square spin ice model as an effective
model. Using an extension of the model presented in ref. [Scientific Reports 5,
15875 (2015)], considering the influence of the eight nearest neighbors of each
spin on the lattice, we analyze the thermodynamics of the model and study the
monopoles and string densities dependence as a function of the temperature.
