The following is a quick guide to downloading CAMS data. The example is for black carbon aerosol mixing ratio from the CAMS near-real-time dataset.

  • Visit and log in at the interactive web interface (if necessary create an account first):
  • Select month
    • Month and year of the data to download
  • Select time
    • Time of the CAMS analysis in UTC
  • Select step
    • Number of hours in the CAMS forecast in hours from the analysis time
    • step=0 will return data at the analysis time, step=12 will return forecast data 12 hours after the analysis time
  • Select level and parameter
    • Under "Type of level" at the left of the screen choose "Pressure levels" so that each parameter is available on different vertical pressure levels
    • parameter=Hydrophilic/Hydrophobic Black Carbon Aerosol Mixing Ratio at 1000-100 hPa will return the 3-D mixing ratio at all selected pressure levels in the troposphere
    • Selecting "Surface" as the type of level will show parameters such as total columns of atmospheric constituents, aerosol optical depth, and surface PM2.5/PM10
  • Download data
    • Click "Retrieve NetCDF" to request the data from the ECMWF archive system and download a netCDF file containing the requested data
    • for advanced users the "View the MARS request" link can be used to access CAMS data via API using python
Last modified: Thursday, 7 November 2019, 9:51 AM