Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) data and forecast are now accessible on Windy.
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World Environment Day: Global air quality data and forecasts from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) are now accessible on Windy.
Following a partnership agreement, over 800,000 users of the popular weather application, Windy, can now access global air quality information provided by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). CAMS is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Union.
As a result of the collaboration, CAMS’ forecasts of the surface concentrations of the two main air pollutants, nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter, have been integrated into Windy. In addition, CAMS Aerosol Optical Depth forecasts are also featured on the app, allowing users to track the paths of plumes of fine particulate matter from a variety of sources around the planet, including dust, biomass burning, pollution, sea sprays and volcanic eruptions. Finally, CAMS’ forecast of the Earth’s ozone layer are also available in Windy.
Windy already uses information from ECMWF to provide its users with a range of weather parameters including wind, rain, lightning and cloud types. Air quality is a major concern throughout the world, contributing to around 400,000 premature deaths across the European Union each year, and easy access to air quality forecasts is now more important than ever before. Windy’s global reach will help bring much-needed CAMS air quality data to businesses, governments, organisations and individuals throughout the world via its simple and highly-visual application.
Following the new initiative with CAMS, Windy.com is one of the first of its kind to offer consistent air quality and winds forecasts in a fast, clear and understandable animation format, providing easy-to-access insight for businesses and individuals into the air we breathe. Visualising winds and air pollution at the same time is highly relevant, as winds drive the transport of pollutants and the absence of wind is a key factor for the accumulation of pollutants and the development of pollution episodes. Just like CAMS data, the app is provided free of charge to everyone without any advertising. It is available on all platforms including iOS, Android and desktop.
This is just one of a number of related projects supported by CAMS, which was set up as part of the European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation Programme. The service provides freely-available global data on air quality, solar energy, greenhouse gas emissions, the ozone layer and more. CAMS combines computer models of the atmosphere, similar to those used for weather forecasts, with satellite and in-situ observations to provide daily forecasts of the composition of the air throughout the world.
Ivo Lukačovič, founder of Czech-based start-up Windy, comments: “Following our partnership agreement with CAMS, we are delighted to have completed the integration process to include much-needed air quality data from the organisation. At Windy, we are committed to providing information in a clear format that everyone can understand and even with increasing amounts of data to process and display, the app is incredibly fast as well as being user-friendly.”
Vincent-Henri Peuch, Head of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, adds: “We are delighted that Windy has now integrated CAMS data, so that its many users can now access our global and European air quality forecasts. To help inform, mobilise and eventually combat air pollution, air quality forecasts need to become as common as weather forecasts. The way Windy visualizes data from CAMS helps people to understand that air pollution is not simply a local problem, but can be transported for hundreds or thousands of kilometres by winds. On Windy, users and businesses can easily follow where air pollution is transported and where it accumulates.”
The newly integrated CAMS data can be found on Windy.com.
Nitrogen dioxide
Particulate matter
Aeorosol optical depth
Ozone layerhttps://www.windy.com/annotation/5cf79d2ae27361001967c7b3
https://www.windy.com/annotation/5cf79d63e27361001967c7b4
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@TomSlavkovsky
Bravo ! 👏👏👏 -
Amazing 👏👏👏
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@TomSlavkovsky
Very good work !! -
This post is deleted! -
Muito bom trabalho. Eine super Arbeit
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@Андрей-Бирюков
I think is important that a large organization (Copernicus)
trusts a small start-up (Windy)
to provide air quality data to the general public in a user-friendly way. -
It is important for me to observe that NOx gases (air quality) occur
not only in large cities (because of high motor vehicle traffic).
COPERNICUS data shows high concentrations also along merchant ship routes
and airline routes (flight paths).
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Also I want to inform the community that aerosol data (Atmospheric Optical Depth-AOD)
is highly correlated to reduced visibility (because of haze or dust).
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Hi @Gkikas-LGPZ. I am Vincent-Henri and am in charge of CAMS. What you see on this layer is NO2 concentration at the surface. You rightly point to ship tracks over the Atlantic, Mediterranean. Over the Black Sea, these are also ship tracks, not flight paths. The lines that you point in Russia are motorways (M-11 between Moscow and St Petersburg or M-9 going westwards from Moscow to Latvia). Only a small fraction of NO2 emitted by aircraft make it to the ground directly: this is mostly near airports due to take-off & landing; NO2 emissions by aircraft at cruise level mostly get back to the ground through deposition of HNO3 and would not appear as lines at the surface. I hope this helps!
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@vhp_cams
Thank you very much for the definitions!
Unfortunatelly, I haven't noticed that it is a surface concentration.
My fault. -
I just strongly suggest to change colors of Ozone layers. High DU is now yellow which people read like BAD, while low DU are blue, which leaves people calm.
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@ivo
There is "good" and "bad" ozone!
Near ground level ozone is an atmospheric pollutant
while stratospheric ozone (in the ozone layer) filters out sunlight
preventing damaging UV light from reaching the Earth's surface. -
Great job! Amazing data
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@Gkikas-LGPZ OK so which ozone we display now? The upper or lower one?
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@ivo total column. For "every day use" I think UV radiation forecast is more useful as it takes into account not only ozone but also clouds and aerosol particles.
Also https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/discovair -
Standing Ovation from me to Windy & CAMS on their Merger!
I definitely will support & donate when I can to keep such an excellent platform on air! ;) -
@Orion73064 Thank you!
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@ivo We display total column of ozone, especially for monitoring of ozone holes = "the area where ozone columns are less than 220 Dobson Units (DU)". Antarctic ozone hole is seasonal. According to Copernicus, 2018's ozone hole "was one of the largest holes of recent years". Full article about 2018 Antarctic ozone hole season: https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/2018-antarctic-ozone-hole-season
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Could anyone explain why there is such a concentration of NO2 between the French coast and Corsica when selecting the CAMS 40km model compared to the CAMS EU 10km model? In the observed case the difference is about 10 times higher.
How can a model of low resolution (40km) show figures so high that a model of higher resolution (10km) does not detect. While the regional multi-models ensemble used by CAMS EU does not operate in the same way as the CAMS global model, these differences seems to be a bias.
We know there are many ferries and big cruise ships between the coast and Corsica, but what content of NO2 should be considered in this region?
(I have observed these big differences for several days now, and same issue in Algeria and Tunisia).
