Minutes of the CAMS seventh User Workshop · 3.2 Overview of CAMS product portfolio and user...

ECMWF COPERNICUS NOTE

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service

Minutes of the CAMS seventh User Workshop

Bucharest, 27 November 2019

Issued by: DLR / Thomas Popp

Date: 08/04/2020

Ref: CAMS94_2018SC2_202002_Minutes_Bucharest_v1.2


CAMS94_2018SC2 – Minutes Bucharest workshop Page 2 of 17

1 Agenda



2 Participants The workshop had altogether 47 participants from the following organisations:

• MeteoRomania

• Institutul National de Cercetare Dezvoltare in Optoelectronica (INOE)

• Institutul National de Hidrologie si Gospodarirea Apelor (INHGA)

• National Institute for Aerospace Research Elie Carafoli (INCAS)

• Institute of Geography of the Romanian Academy (IGAR)

• Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Fizica Pamantului (INCDFP)

• Centrul Național de Cartografie (CNC)

• Romanian Space Agency (ROSA)

• National Institute for Earth Physics

• University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics

• University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography

• National Institute for Research and Development for Earth Physics

• BEIA Consult International

• SC Ecosearch SRL and from CAMS: ECMWF, DLR, CERC, NILU, FMI, Transvalor In order to protect personal data, the participant list is only handled as internal document inside CAMS and kept as a separate Annex to these minutes. The participant list will not be published together with this Minutes document.



3 Summary of presentations, questions and discussions This workshop was co-organised by the Romanian Copernicus Committee representative, MeteoRomania, the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forest, the Romanian Space Agency and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). Many thanks go to the local organizing committee of Anisoara Irimescu and Vasile Craciunescu (MeteoRomania) and Ion Nedelcu (ROSA). All presentations are available on the CAMS website at https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cams-user-workshop-bucharest. 3.1 Welcome Participants were welcomed by Gheorghe Stancalie (MeteoRomania) and Ion Nedelcu (Romanian Copernicus committee delegate). There was no welcome address by the environment ministry due to very recent re-organsiation (e.g. name change to ministry of environment, waters and forests).

3.2 Overview of CAMS product portfolio and user support CAMS and its product portfolio (Vincent-Henri Peuch, ECMWF) After briefly introducing the Copernicus program Vincent-Henri provided an overview of the CAMS service and its portfolio. It was stressed as important characteristics of CAMS that it is user-driven, provides free and unrestricted data access, covers global and regional scales and includes reanalysis, forecasts and supplementary data products. Support to users provided by CAMS (Kevin Marsh, ECMWF) Kevin explained how CAMS is actively supporting its users with significant effort via a knowledge base / documentation in the website, a service desk, a newly introduced user forum and underlying in-depth user support by involved CAMS contractors, through several topic-related mailing lists, training and specific quality control – all this support is for free. Kevin furthermore summarized the outcomes of the 2019 user satisfaction survey. CAMS user interaction and how it helps shape its evolution (Thomas Popp, DLR) Thomas explained how user feedback and requirements are collected in a dedicated contract of CAMS and how they influence the service evolution strategy. User workshops as the one in Bucharest provide a particular opportunity for questions, feedback and raising new requirements. National uptake scheme to support member states using CAMS (Vincent-Henri Peuch / ECMWF) Vincent-Henri summarized a CAMS proposal for the next Copernicus phase (2021 – 2027) for a

national uptake scheme for air quality. Its purpose is to support national activities to downscale

CAMS information matching the landscape in different EU countries by dedicated contracts

between CAMS and entity(ies) in charge of air quality at the national level (operational activity, with

funding expected around 100 kEuros per year per member state). CAMS offers to Romania to test

this proposal in 2020 – 2021 for Romania.

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cams-user-workshop-bucharest

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cams-user-workshop-bucharest



First implementation of the WRF/CHEM model at NMA (Amalia Iriza-Burca / MeteoRomania) Amalia explained that MeteoRomania have implemented WRF-Chem over Romania to test the

impact of assimilation of ground and satellite PM10 measurements at a spatial resolution of 10 km

(testing assimilation of both ground-based and satellite measurements).

Questions / comments

• Thomas pointed out that by using CAMS as boundary conditions, the coarse resolution run

could be avoided

• In order to assess the impact of satellite data, Etienne suggested to assimilate only satellite

measurements and then compare with ground-based measurements. At the moment the

ground-based assimilation will dominate.

• It was asked whether there are contacts of this research activity with any operational system; this could be relevant for the national uptake scheme.

ACTRIS aerosol profiles for CAMS (Doina Nicolae / National Institute of R&D for Optoelectronics) Diona described a pilot project to accommodate the provision of ACTRIS / EARLINET ground-based aerosol lidar data to CAMS. At the end of the talk she raised the following questions for CAMS regarding the lidar data so that the provision can be targeted to meet the CAMS priorities:

• What is the use of this data? • What are the requirements for this data? • What new data products are of interest?

Questions / comments Vincent-Henri explained CAMS plans to use lidar data for online CAMS evaluation. Additionally, CAMS forecasts could also be used as complementary information for QA/QC of the lidar data. Following requirements were raised:

• Finer vertical resolution of CAMS global fields for lidar evaluation above PBL – Vincent-Henri

suggested the use of a combination of CAMS regional in the PBL and CAMS global above.

• PM4 or PM1 (ground and PBL) for health applications

3.3 Showcases of CAMS products and their uses Air quality services for citizens (Amy Stidworthy / CERC) Amy explained the Riga example of air pollution forecasts for citizens (Riga airTEXT), which is based on the long experience in London. Such a service needs to account for long-range transport as well as for local emissions of pollutants and translate them to street level information for non-experts (air quality levels). The service uses CAMS air quality, pollen and UV forecasts. Questions / comments

• Vasile asked for major blocking factors to set up such a local system – Amy stated that finding good local emissions is the major difficulty



• Vasile asked for a case of authorities using the RigaAirtext – Amy mentioned that future source apportionment work is planned

• Amalia asked whether this system is general or specific for each city – Amy explained that it is specific with local street canyon topography, local surface roughness, local terrain. Asked how difficult it is to set up the local model in this way, Amy explained that CERC provides support and training to ADMS-Urban users all over the world, which makes it not so difficult. The difficult part is usually sourcing the local emissions data to input to the system, although CERC is working on ways to make this easier.

• Etienne asked whether there is a direct use of a digital elevation model – Amy said that this is possible

Norwegian air quality management approaches and tools (Leonor Tarrason / NILU) Leonor described that emissions reduction scenario analysis has been carried out at 100m local

model resolution using CAMS reanalysis as boundary conditions to the local model. This work

started with 7 cities, now looking at 17. Maps are showing change in annual average PM

concentrations with e.g. reduction in studded tyre use. Leonor stated that citizen involvement via

citizen science is key to create awareness.

Questions / comments It was discussed at what level CAMS can be introduced and suggested to develop best practice guides to demonstrate CAMS data can be used for concrete reporting tasks. Pollen information (Rostitslav Kouznetsov / FMI) Rostitslav motivated the needs for pollen information with the wide spread of allergic symptoms in the population throughout Europe. To mitigate those symptoms timely medication is crucial, which needs timely forecasting of pollen episodes. Here CAMS can cover the long-range transport (e.g. birch pollen travel far over Europe and create episodes of high pollen concentrations distinct from local flowering). Local citizen pollen tools demonstrated the value of such information, while collaboration / quality control by medical practitioners is also crucial to avoid false alarms. Questions / comments Participants asked whether a multi-model ensemble is used for pollen (answer: not yet) and how many stations of EAN are available for validation in Baltic states (answer: ~4). CAMS solar applications (Etienne Wey / TSV) Etienne demonstrated how CAMS solar radiation data is used in many applications. For example,

CAMS solar radiation data is being used to make ‘solar cadasters’ for almost all of France, delivered

through a service called ‘In Sun We Trust’

Questions / comments A brief discussion came up about possible improvements for cloud forecasting? (cloud motion, numerical weather prediction).



3.4 Post-card collection, initial responses, panel and general discussion After the final coffee break, everyone was asked to write on a postcard any comments they have about any aspect about CAMS, any feedback, any requirements. As guidance a set of questions was provided (see 3.6). A summary of the postcards is provided in 3.7. A selection of the postcards were read out and discussed:

• More support is needed in local languages, particularly for health applications

• Romania needs to make more effort to disseminate information about CAMS; it is a shame

the Romanian Environment Ministry is not here [they were expected, but for

political/logistical reasons they could not attend]

o The minutes of the workshop will be sent to them following the meeting

• Training and support – we need more help to get started using the data

o There is a 1-week training course in 2020 [see coming announcement at

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/training]

o There was a massive open online course (MOOC) last year, which is now available

online – this is highly recommended

[https://content.atmospheremooc.org/monitoring-atmospheric-composition]

o The Atmosphere Data Store (ADS) will have worked examples and be easier to use

than the current access methods

• netCDF is better than GRIB!

o Most products are already available in netCDF as well as GRIB

o The ADS will make all products available in netCDF

• Need better dissemination within the health sector

o Yes. Good example of work being done already is by researchers at the University of

Exeter using CAMS PM, working on the WHO’s global burden of disease report

(2016); paper should be available in the next few months

• Are there likely to be more ensemble members in the future?

o Yes. First it was 7, now it is 9. In the future we expect this to increase to 11. Skill has

been shown to increase each time the number of ensemble members is increased.

The key criteria to be considered for inclusion in the Ensemble is that you must be

the primary team responsible for developing your model.

After the workshop, ECMWF / CAMS will make sure to answer all questions not yet answered during

the day.



3.5 Final discussion: How can CAMS help with environmental issues facing Romania?

4 panelists were invited to start the discussion with their opening statements.

Amalia Iriza-Burca, MeteoRomania

• Many cities in Romania are currently infringing EU air quality standards

• Romania needs financial support to help tackle this

• Need to open the issue to the public more to get their involvement

Doina Nicolae, National Institute of R&D for Optoelectronics

• The Romanian public are not so well-informed about air quality, so it is our responsibility to

educate them

• Romania has very particular meteorological conditions: very hot in summer, very cold in

winter, lots of fog

• CAMS can certainly help, but this needs to be combined with local monitoring

• The example from Norway is good, because it shows how science can make things better for

citizens

• We can add value to CAMS products, but we need financial support and interest from the

authorities

• Are there any solar radiation users in Romania using CAMS products?

o EW: don’t know, there could be, their customers have many PV sites

• Maybe we can start with a city?

o Suggest Magurele, town 6km to south-west of Bucharest

o There the local council is very engaged

o There is a big power plant to the south-west, and Bucharest to the north-east, plus

local traffic, so air pollution is a big issue

o Buildings there are only 2-storey, with much building in development

o A physics institute is there

o Could also have low cost sensors

o People there are open to new things!

o Vincent-Henri: such a local project would qualify for national uptake scheme funding

Ion Nedelcu

• Would like to do more on the access to the products, on best practice

• We can be open to proposals to develop actions for CAMS uptake in Romania

• Want to organise more hands-on activities related to CAMS products

o Leonor: the CAMS Policy Workshop in March would be good for hands-on training for

the Environment Ministry



o Amy: National agency should be interested in the national scale, but our experience

in Riga is that it is the local city authority that are most interested in the city scale,

and here you need to downscale CAMS to the local scale, as in Riga and Norway

Gheorghe Stancalie, MeteoRomania

• There is no representative here from the Environment Ministry – he will pass on information

• MeteoRomania now has more computing capacity, but still not enough!

• Romania will become a full member of ECMWF next year

In the open discussion the following items came up:

• Cloud forecasting is a challenging task, but better than climatology or persistence.

• How can user uptake be stimulated? The CAMS approach works with user workshops, national follow-up in federation with CAMS support; there have been nice success cases with this. For example, in Norway the Copernicus user forum shares experiences among users and discusses priorities on national level to identify needs for CAMS.

• A frequently raised need is free access to meteorological forecast data together with CAMS atmospheric data. Since these meteorological data are not funded by Copernicus, the data policy is in the hands of national Met services. Some of them are opening free access. In 2025 all ECMWF data will be open (council decision).

• User statistics of top service lines were asked. Vincent-Henri explained large multiplication factors by media such as the weather, CNN, Euronews, Windy.

• It was pointed out that CAMS has open calls for using is products (CAMS-95 use cases, again in end of 2020).



3.6 Postcard questions



3.7 Summary of postcards collected at the workshop A copy of the original postcards is available in Annex B. Own interests

1) What surprised you most?

- I was surprised about the progress of CAMS products, although uncertainties are still

missing

- Large number of products / datasets available

- Large number of CAMS applications

- I was surprised by the breadth and depth of real-world uses for CAMS data now. The

impact of CAMS is very large

- The most interesting is that you have pressure level fields which help in 3D model

- I was surprised that pollen levels and distribution can be monitored from space

2) Which CAMS product can you imagine to start working with?

- Products related to health

- Pollen products

- Combine CAMS aerosol products with observations to provide more insight on sources

and consequences at national level

- Introduce new aerosol species (ammonia, nitrate) into atmospheric composition for the

whole time period

- Air quality forecast data and meteorological data; pollen data

- Forecasting data

- Application of AI algorithms to predict air quality

- Forecast and reanalysis products for air quality (aerosols and gases, meteorological data)

- Air quality products, especially after fire events

- The Norwegian air quality management was very interesting

- Air quality products, especially PM (10, 5, 2.5)

3) Which obstacles do you see to use CAMS products?

- Lack of funding. Authorities do not seem interested in air quality in Romania or on

relation with health and climate change

- I cannot use the token password on C3S website

- Large files (but his is not a real obstacle)

- When I tried to download large files, often the site collapsed

- Data access, formats and documentation are barriers to user uptake.

- GRIB2 format; netCDF will be better

- Main problem is the lack of presence of national or local environmental authorities

- Standard colours



Questions to CAMS 1) Which clarification / explanation do you need?

- Are there missing data in the CAMS period?

- Why only NO and NO2, but no NOx?

- Is there an available software tool for downloading and plotting the data?

- Do institutions / companies that produce and install solar panels or photovoltaic panels

come to you for studies and forecast in order to see established if they are suitable and

sustainable for a specific area?

- What was the best approach used to make authorities listen and implement solutions

that you provided based on the research you did?

- What resolution do CAMS products have? Can the resolution in future be 100m?

- Does CAMS collaborate with medical meteorology researchers?

- Does CAMS get feedback about health improvement where the air quality control has

been implemented?

- Are there plans of extending the number of ensemble members available in the CAMS

system?

2) Which support would you need?

- Set up redistribution point in local language

- Collaborative projects with CAMS to build up tailored services + lobby to the Romanian

authorities; more publicity towards the public and stakeholders

- More examples how to use API applications for model level products

3) Do you need specific training?

- On common practice related to uptake of products in different fields

- Use of remote sensing data

- It would be nice to have CAMS workshops more often, training included

- Webinair how to use forecast products

- Training for pollen products

- Online training sessions of different topics

- This workshop was very interesting and I hope in the future there will be another

training in our country, because sometimes technical obstacles may appear

- Hands-on workshop

Suggestions to Romanian national authorities 1) What needs do you have for national collaboration in Romania?

- Interest towards building CAMS-based services of use in Romania

- Trust in developments made at the R&D institutes

- Involvement in applying the tools and services

- Coordination

- Better collaboration between research and policy makers

- express Romanian needs so that CAMS can consider them for uptake activities



- use CAMS products and results to better define sensitive areas considering air pollution

- key question is how to involve environmental authorities in the elaboration of plans to

control air pollution with the help of CAMS. Do national authorities think they can

control air pollution without developing an Air Quality Management Plan? How are AQM

tools developed in Romania?

- Will the WRF model be implemented in the operative system in Romania?

2) What national support would you need?

- National meetings

- Financial support

- publicity

- Create an interactive map with important pollutants

Any other feedback or question you want to provide - Better sharing of good practices

- More sessions on the use of products (this was the first and only user workshop in

Romania) organized for scientific community, public administrations, policy makers

- How can we increase the user participation in the CAMS user survey (only 4% responded

in 2019)



4 Requirements made during the workshop At the workshop following new requirements were raised:

• finer vertical resolution above the boundary layer in the regional analysis (to be used for lidar evaluation)

• PM1 (smaller particle mass than in current regulations, with likely more direct health impact

• better parameterisation of clouds

• include uncertainties in all CAMS products



5 Conclusion The workshop had 47 participants (there had been 66 registrations) mostly from academia and MeteoRomania. The workshop had a unique audience of many young scientists. It could build on long-term collaboration of MACC / CAMS with MeteoRomania. The main deficit was the lack of representatives of national or local environmental authorities which was due to a very recent organizational change in the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests (the previous Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Water and Forests merged into a single entity, causing major reorganization). However, Meteo Romania representatives had post-workshop meetings with the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests and the National Protection Agency to inform them about the outcomes of the CAMS user workshop and memory sticks with workshop materials were distributed to all relevant experts). In particular the postcards collection with subsequent (panel) discussion stimulated active involvement of participants and led to defining the scope of a concrete regional case study to demonstrate the use of CAMS boundary conditions which should be funded by MeteoRomania and could contribute to the CAMS national uptake pilot for Romania.



6 Appendices A: Signed participant list (CAMS-internal only) B: Copy of original postcards collected during the workshop


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