Introduction

The regional air quality production of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) is based on an ensemble of 11 state-of-the-art numerical air quality models developed in Europe : CHIMERE from INERIS (France), EMEP from MET Norway (Norway), EURAD-IM from Jülich IEK (Germany), LOTOS-EUROS from KNMI and TNO (Netherlands), MATCH from SMHI (Sweden), MOCAGE from METEO-FRANCE (France), SILAM from FMI (Finland), DEHM from AARHUS UNIVERSITY (Denmark), and GEM-AQ from IEP-NRI (Poland), MONARCH from BSC (Spain) and MINNI from ENEA (Italy).

The regional air quality models provide 4-day, daily forecasts of the main atmospheric pollutants concentrations, in the lowest layers of the atmosphere for the European domain (east boundary=25.0° W, west=45.0° E, south=30.0° N, north=72.0°). Their horizontal coverage is 0.1° (approximatively 10 to 20 km), allowing background air pollution levels and medium-range atmospheric composition to be monitored and forecasted. To get insight into your local area, please liaise with your national or local air quality agency.

Alongside forecasts, the models perform daily analyses of pollutants near the surface by assimilating, i.e merging, 1-day old observations with the models. For this purpose, each system of the ensemble rely on their own data assimilation system. Surface observations are split into two sets used in the data evaluations process and for statistical assessments of forecasts and analyses. They are collected on a daily basis from the European Environmental Agency (EEA), and more precisely from its near-real-time (NRT) service for air quality measurements over Europe.

The forecasts and analyses from all partner models are combined in calculating the median value of the individual outputs, which currently gives the best estimate from the ensemble. In that case the median value is designated as the ENSEMBLE output.

Beside this near-real time production, validated and interim reanalyses of previous years are produced with the same ensemble of different models. Reanalyses products provide a revised version of the analyses using more observations, a reanalysis weather modeling and much better quality control (thus the term re-analyses). 

Please note that access to the numerical data produced by the production chains of the individual models and the ENSEMBLE output is subject to your prior acceptance of the Licence agreement and registration (read more here for licence and here for registration).

Air quality models and data assimilation system

The eleven air quality models use the meteorological parameters settings coming from the 00:00 UTC operational ECMWF IFS forecast from the day before, the boundary conditions for chemical species coming from the CAMS IFS-TM5 global production, the emissions coming from CAMS emission (for anthropic emissions over Europe and for biomass burning). The domain covers the European area: 25W/30N/45E/72N since 12th June 2019. Before this date, the domain coverage was smaller i.e. 25W/30N/45E/70N.

Table 1: Air quality models (Source: Regional Production, Updated documentation covering all Regional operational systems and the ENSEMBLE (01-2021) document)

ModelInstitution
CHIMEREINERIS (France)
DEHMAARHUS UNIVERSITY (Denmark)
EMEPMET Norway (Norway)
EURAD-IMJülich IEK (Germany)
GEM-AQIEP-NRI (Poland)
LOTOS-EUROSKNMI and TNO (Netherlands)
MATCHSMHI (Sweden)
MINNIENEA (Italy)
MOCAGEMETEO-FRANCE (France)
MONARCHBSC (Spain)
SILAMFMI (Finland)

Upgrades of the CAMS global forecasting system

Upgrade

Date

Development items

U0

Feb. 2019

Integration of hourly GFAS emissions

U1.1

June 2019

  • Anthropogenic CAMS-REG-AP_v2.2.1 (2015) emissions
  • New domain extended 2deg North
  • Addition of parameter: dust in PM10 fraction
  • Addition of parameter: secondary inorganic aerosols, in PM2.5 fraction
  • C-IFS and IFS moving to 137 vertical levels

U1.2

Oct. 2019

Addition of two new state-of-the-art numerical air quality models to form an 9-member ENSEMBLE:

  • DEHM from AU (Denmark)
  • GEMAQ from IEP-NRI (Poland)

U2

Feb. 2020

  • Anthropogenic CAMS-REG-AP_v3.1 (2016) emissions
  • Addition of parameter: primary non-reactive aerosol tracers of wildfires, in PM10 fraction
  • Addition of parameter: elemental Carbon from residential wood burning, in PM2.5 fraction
  • Standardisation of GFAS forcings

U3

Feb. 2020

  • Anthropogenic CAMS_REG_AG_v4.2 (2017) emissions
  • Addition of parameter: alder pollen
  • Increase of number of observation stations

U4

June 2020

  • Addition of parameter: mugwort pollen
  • Implementation of CAMS-REG-AP_v4.2_REF2.1 emissions
  • Withdrawal of parameters: elemental carbon from fossil fuel (EC_ff) and elemental carbon from residential wood burning (EC_wb) in PM2.5 fraction
  • Addition of parameter: total elemental carbon from all activity sectors (EC_tot) in the PM2.5 fraction
  • Addition of parameter: elemental carbon from residential emissions (EC_res) in the PM2.5 fraction

U5

Mar. 2022

  • Implementation of new emissions CAMS-REG-v5.1 REF2 v2.0.1 for the year 2018
  • Addition of two vertical output levels: 100m and 750m

U6

June 2022

Addition of two new state-of-the-art numerical air quality models to form an 11-member ENSEMBLE:

  • MONARCH from BSC (Spain)
  • MINNI from ENEA (Italy)

U7

Nov. 2022

Addition of folmaldehyde (HCHO) and glyoxal (CHOCHO) in the model output species

U7b

June 2023

  • Implementation of improvements in individual models
  • Adaptation of productions to the CAMS cycle 48r1

U8

November 2023

  • Addition of parameter: Total Organic Matter, in PM2.5 fraction
  • Addition of parameter: Sea Salt Dry, in PM10 fraction
  • Implementation of new emissions CAMS-REG-v6.1 for the year 2022

U8b

June 2024

  • Implementation of improvements in individual models

U9

November/December 2024

  • Implementation of new emissions CAMS_REG.v7 for the year 2023
  • Adaptation of productions to the IFS and CAMS cycle cy49r1
  • Addition of parameter: Nitrate , in PM2.5 fraction
  • Addition of parameter: Sulfate, in PM2.5 fraction
  • Addition of parameter: Ammonium, in PM2.5fraction

Data access

Data is available for download from the CAMS Atmosphere Data Store (ADS). CAMS ADS registered users can access the available data interactively through the CAMS European air quality forecast ADS download web interface and/or programmatically using the API as per instructions detailed here.

From 1st July 2020, the access method to the European air quality Web Map Service (WMS) is through a new server at ECMWF which hosts the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. Details are available here.

The Web Coverage Service (WCS) was shutdown on 30 June 2020. CAMS European air quality data retrieval for a specific geographical area and/or level is now served through the Atmosphere Data Store.

Data availability (HH:MM)

The CAMS European air quality forecasts is a 3-year rolling archive in the ADS for NRT product, as other/better product become available in the form of reanalyses. For traceability of research results making use of this data, we invite users to keep the files that they have downloaded and used for their research.

The production of the forecast and analysis packages take place at different times of the day : Forecast D0 (0-24h) at 05:50 UTC , D1 (25-48h) 05:55 UTC, D2 (49-72h) 07:30 UTC, D3 (73-96h) 08:00 UTC and 11:00 UTC for Analysis (-24H-1H)).

Ensemble analyses :

Data availability guaranteed by 12:00 UTC

Ensemble forecast :

0-24h forecast data availability guaranteed by 08:00 UTC

25-48h forecast data availability guaranteed by 08:00 UTC

49-72h forecast data availability guaranteed by 10:00 UTC

73-96h forecast data availability guaranteed by 10:00 UTC

It is possible that the data will be available earlier but without guarantee.

Please see the following page for the missing data for each model for the full archive period:

CAMS European air quality models data availability errors

Spatial grid

Horizontal resolution of ENSEMBLE forecasts and analyses is on a 0.1°× 0.1° regular latitude-longitude grid.

The eleven individual models have different native spatial grids (for details see Regional Production, Updated documentation covering all Regional operational systems and the ENSEMBLE (01-2021) document) and they are interpolated on the ensemble common regular grid for each time step of the daily forecasts.

Temporal frequency

The daily ensemble forecast, run from 00 UTC, with a Time resolution of 1 hour and Forecasts period from step 0h to step 96h.

Data format

Data are available in NetCDF format for the individual models outputs, and in NetCDF and Grib-Edition2 format for the ENSEMBLE outputs.

Care should be taken when decoding regional CAMS grib files. The page How to identify fields in European air-quality forecast grib files describes how they should be handled.

Level listings

Vertical levels: Surface, 50m, 100m, 250m, 500m, 750m, 1000m, 2000m, 3000m, 5000m

Pollen data are available only at the surface.

Product listings (including pollen)

Model forecasts are not suitable for clinical trials.
The following species could be considered experimental and without evaluation and to be used with caution:

  • SIA
  • CHOCHO
  • HCHO
  • NO
  • PANs
  • NMVOC
  • PM10_WF
  • PM25_ECtot
  • PM25_ECres
  • NH3
  • DUST
  • Sea Salt Dry
  • Total Organic Matter
  • NO3
  • NH4
  • SO4

The land-sea mask field used to produce the regional air quality data is attached here below, already interpolated to a regular lat/lon grid of 0.1°x0.1°:

name

units

land-sea mask (netCDF4)

(0-1)
Variable NameNetCDF UnitsGrib UnitsVariable name in ADSAnalysisForecastNote
Alder pollengrains m-3grains m-3

alder_pollen


×

Since 21st November, 2023 : forecast available all over the year 

Before 21st November 2023 : forecast available from 1st January to 30th June (implemented in November 2020)

Ammoniaµg m-3kg m-3ammonia××
Birch pollengrains m-3grains m-3birch_pollen
×

Since 21st November, 2023 : forecast available all over the year 

Before 21st November 2023 : forecast available from 1st March to 31st July (implemented in November 2015)

Carbon monoxideµg m-3kg m-3carbon_monoxide××
Dustµg m-3kg m-3dust××Dust is fraction in PM10
Grass pollengrains m-3grains m-3grass_pollen
×

Since 21st November, 2023 : forecast available all over the year 

Before 21st November 2023 : forecast available from 1st March to 31st August (implemented in November 2016)

Grass pollen species are not distinguishable at microscopic analysis, i.e., the grass source term has been parameterized to meet the “general-grass” observations.

Mugwort pollengrains m-3grains m-3mugwort_pollen
×

Since 21st November, 2023 : forecast available all over the year 

Before 21st November 2023 : forecast available from 1st June to 31st October (implemented in June 2021)

Nitrogen dioxideµg m-3kg m-3nitrogen_dioxide××
Nitrogen monoxideµg m-3kg m-3nitrogen_monoxide××
Non-methane volatile compounds (VOCs)µg m-3kg m-3non_methane_vocs××Mass concentration expressed as carbon in air
Olive pollengrains m-3grains m-3olive_pollen
×

Since 21st November, 2023 : forecast available all over the year 

Before 21st November 2023 : forecast available from 1st January to 30th June (implemented in November 2016)

 

Ozoneµg m-3kg m-3ozone××
Particulate matter d < 10 µm (PM10)µg m-3kg m-3particulate_matter_10um××
Particulate matter d < 10 µm, wildfires only (PM10_WF)µg m-3kg m-3

pm10_wildfires



Forecast available from March 2020
Particulate matter d < 2.5 µm (PM2.5)µg m-3kg m-3particulate_matter_2××
Anthropogenic total elementary carbonµg m-3kg m-3pm2.5_anthropogenic_total_carbon××Total elementary carbon is fraction in PM2.5, Forecast available from June 2021
Anthropogenic residential elementary carbonµg m-3kg m-3pm2.5_anthropogenic_residential_carbon××Residential elementary carbon is fraction in PM2.5, Forecast available from June 2021
Peroxyacyl nitrates (PANs)µg m-3kg m-3peroxyacyl_nitrates××
Ragweed pollengrains m-3grains m-3ragweed_pollen
×

Since 21st November, 2023 : forecast available all over the year 

Before 21st November 2023 : forecast available from 1st July to 31st October (implemented in June 2019).

In principle, the season starts in midsummer: the 2 main driving parameters are the temperature and the photoperiod. A minimum of daily mean temperature is required and too long photoperiod slows down the phenological development. So, the shortening of photoperiod is used in models as a threshold for the season start (end of July in Eastern and South-eastern Europe).

 

Secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA)µg m-3kg m-3secondary_inorganic_aerosol××SIA is fraction in PM2.5. Data available from 12 June 2019
Sulphur dioxideµg m-3kg m-3sulphur_dioxide××
Glyoxalµg m-3kg m-3glyoxal××The models DEHM, LOTOS-EUROS, MONARCH and SILAM deliver methylglyoxal as glyoxal for a limited period of time until glyoxal has been added to their chemical mechanisms. Forecast available from 21 November 2022
Formaldehyde µg m-3kg m-3formaldehyde ××Forecast available from 21 November 2022
Sea Salt Dryµg m-3kg m-3pm10_sea_salt_dry×× Sea salt dry is fraction in PM10, Forecast available from 20 November 2023
Total Organic Matterµg m-3kg m-3pm2.5_total_organic_matter××Total organic matter is fraction in PM2.5, Forecast available from 20 November 2023
Nitrate
µg m-3kg m-3pm2.5_nitrate××Nitrate is fraction in PM2.5. Data avaible from 3 december 2024.
Ammonuim
µg m-3kg m-3pm2.5_ammonium××Ammonium is fraction in PM2.5. Data avaible from 3 december 2024.
Sulfate
µg m-3kg m-3pm2.5_sulphate××Sulfate is fraction in PM2.5. Data avaible from 3 december 2024.

In Situ Observations

In-situ observations at surface level are collected from the European Environmental Agency (EEA) on a daily basis. These observations are filtered to keep only measurement sites representative of background air pollution. This is performed by selecting background stations that are classified from 1 to 7 according to the Joly and Peuch classification 2024 version (https://opensource.umr-cnrm.fr/projects/air_quality-classification/wiki/Wiki).

Observations datasets are essential for the Regional air quality Near-Real Time (NRT) products for two reasons:
•    For the assimilation by the models producing NRT analyses (to constrain the regional forecast models)
•    For the evaluation of model outputs (both forecasts and analyses)

Consequently, special care is taken to deliver 2 independent datasets:

- Station set 1 is used to select stations that will provide observations for the NRT analysis of individual models.
- Station set 2 is used to select stations that will provide observations for analysis evaluation.

This split into 2 sets for assimilation and analysis evaluation applies to O3, NO2, PM2.5 , PM10 and for CO and SO2, since 2024-04-25 (before that for CO and SO2, all selected stations were used by models in the assimilation. The stations defined for verification are used for quarterly evaluations/reports and visualisation.

For the evaluation of the forecast, all stations of those two sets are used, without split.

Once a year, in March, these sets of stations are updated.

 

YearStations for Analysis assimilationStations for Analysis assessment
2024

stations_analysis_assimilation_CO_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_NO2_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_O3_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM10_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM25_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_SO2_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_NO2_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_O3_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM10_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM25_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_CO_2024.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_SO2_2024.csv

2023

stations_analysis_assimilation_CO_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_NO2_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_O3_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM10_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM25_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_SO2_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_NO2_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_O3_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM10_2023.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM25_2023.csv

2022

stations_analysis_assimilation_CO_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_NO2_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_O3_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM10_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM25_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_SO2_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_NO2_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_O3_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM10_2022.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM25_2022.csv

2021

stations_analysis_assimilation_CO_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_NO2_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_O3_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM10_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_PM25_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assimilation_SO2_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_NO2_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_O3_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM10_2021.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM25_2021.csv


2020

stations_analysis_assessment_NO2_2020.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_O3_2020.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM10_2020.csv

stations_analysis_assessment_PM25_2020.csv


Validation reports

Validation Reports for the CAMS reanalysis can be found on the CAMS Quality Assurance website.

Individual and ENSEMBLE model evaluations are available at station level and aggregated by country through an interactive visualization platform for Forecast and Analysis.

Guidelines

  1. Please find two documents that describe this (compare CAMS data with Tropomi observations).

How to acknowledge, cite and refer to the data

All users of data uploaded on the Atmosphere Data Store (ADS) must provide clear and visible attribution to the Copernicus programme and are asked to cite and reference the dataset provider.

(1) Acknowledge according to the licence to use Copernicus Products.

(2) Cite each dataset used:

  • METEO FRANCE, Institut national de l'environnement industriel et des risques (Ineris), Aarhus University, Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway), Jülich Institut für Energie- und Klimaforschung (IEK), Institute of Environmental Protection – National Research Institute (IEP-NRI), Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI), Nederlandse Organisatie voor toegepast-natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek (TNO), Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) and Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) (2020): CAMS European air quality forecasts, ENSEMBLE data. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Atmosphere Data Store (ADS).  (Accessed on <DD-MMM-YYYY>), https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/datasets/cams-europe-air-quality-forecasts?tab=overview

  • METEO FRANCE, Institut national de l'environnement industriel et des risques (Ineris), Aarhus University, Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway), Jülich Institut für Energie- und Klimaforschung (IEK), Institute of Environmental Protection – National Research Institute (IEP-NRI), Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI), Nederlandse Organisatie voor toegepast-natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek (TNO), Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) and Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) (2022): CAMS European air quality forecasts, ENSEMBLE data. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Atmosphere Data Store (ADS).  (Accessed on <DD-MMM-YYYY>), https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/datasets/cams-europe-air-quality-forecasts?tab=overview

  • Institut national de l'environnement industriel et des risques (Ineris) (2020): CAMS European air quality forecasts, CHIMERE model data. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Atmosphere Data Store (ADS).  (Accessed on <DD-MMM-YYYY>), https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/datasets/cams-europe-air-quality-forecasts?tab=overview

(3) Throughout the content of your publication, the dataset used is referred to as Author (YYYY) e.g. for Ensemble data:  METEO-FRANCE et. al (2020)

References


This document has been produced in the context of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).

The activities leading to these results have been contracted by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, operator of CAMS on behalf of the European Union (Delegation Agreement signed on 11/11/2014 and Contribution Agreement signed on 22/07/2021). All information in this document is provided "as is" and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose.

The users thereof use the information at their sole risk and liability. For the avoidance of all doubt , the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium - Range Weather Forecasts have no liability in respect of this document, which is merely representing the author's view.