CAMS-50 Regional Modelling
CAMS-50 'Regional production' is the flagship project under CAMS and also the largest CAMS project in terms of budget. CAMS-50 is based on seven European air quality models, and of these MET is responsible for one. The project is managed by Meteo France and pays for 0.85 positions at MET.
CAMS-50 provides air quality alerts for Europe on a regional scale (down to approx 10 km resolution) four days in advance, every day. In addition to air pollution alerts CAMS-50 provides alerts about birch pollen, olive pollen and grass pollen.
CAMS-50 uses satellite data to improve the model-based alerts. We run an air quality model ('the EMEP model'), which has been developed here in-house over several decades and which calculates future air quality. In order to supplement the model we use observations (data simulation), and then take the best from the model and the latest observation data in order to predict the reality several days in advance and as accurately as possible. The air quality alerts are being continually evaluated in reports that are sent to the users.
The alerts are utilised by local authorities and decision makers who use them to assess when they should warn people about poor air quality the following day. Among the users are also scientists who use the alerts to evaluate their air quality models.
What is lacking in CAMS-50 is fine-scale air pollution, that is, down to one hundred metres resolution. In the air quality model, Bergen is for example a plain of approx 15 x 15 km without mountains, and with an average altitude of approx 200 MASL. The model must therefore be downscaled to a finer scale if it is to be useful for our Norwegian towns and cities. CAMS-50 is therefore trying to find so-called downstream services that take the CAMS-50 data and downscale it to 50-1000 metres resolution. Since March 1st, 2017 MET has been coordinating a new project (AIRQUIP) that will do just this. The project Better City Air has used data from CAMS-50 and its predecessors for several years already, and there are similar projects in other countries.
CAMS-50 started in October 2015, but the actual product development has been underway since 2006 as the GEMS project and the MACC projects. The development work was demanding, utilising meteorological data, pollution data coming both from Europe and outside Europe, emissions data and satellite data in near real time - i.e. from a few hours to a few days old. There were numerous factors that might work together, and a model was needed that was able to generate advance air quality alerts. It was the EU programmes FP7 and Horizon 2020 that paid for these development projects, and in 2014 the service was made operational, leading to CAMS-50, which officially started in October 2015. The project will last for three years, but will probably be extended until at least 2021.
Participants in CAMS-50:
- Coordinator: Meteo France / FR (model: MOCAGE, operational)
- Ineris / FR (model: CHIMERE, operational)
- MET Norway / NO (model: EMEP, operational)
- TNO / NL (model: LOTOS-EUROS, operational)
- FMI / FI (model: SILAM, operational)
- SMHI / SE (model: MATCH, operational)
- RIUUK / DE (model: EURAD-IM, operational)
- UK Met Office / UK (model: AQUM, under development)
- Aarhus University / DK (model: DEHM, under development)
- Warsaw University / PL (model: GEM-AQ, under development)