CAMS on Air: Boreal summer 2024

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) routinely tracks key indicators of the composition of the atmosphere all around the globe, including surface air quality in Europe, smoke emissions from wildfires, and global concentrations of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gases, amongst others. They are built upon a unique operational modelling system that assimilates Earth observations and measurements from in-situ networks in a stringent quality assurance framework. 

This bulletin highlights some of the significant atmospheric composition-related events that took place during the boreal summer (June-July-August) of 2024.  

Wildfires in South America and Canada produced remarkable carbon and particulate matter emissions

The fire season in South America, which typically develops from late July and August each year, has been particularly notable with widespread, intense burning in Bolivia and Brazil, including the Pantanal region which is home to the world’s largest tropical wetlands. The region has been affected by severe wildfires since the last days of May and has continued through most of June, July and particularly August.

North America has again experienced another extreme summer of wildfires in 2024, behind only 2023 in terms of the total estimated emissions. Many wildfires occurred through most of July and August, both in Canada and the western United States. As a result, Canada’s Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have already seen their highest wildfire carbon emissions for August in the GFAS (CAMS fire emissions dataset). Find information on the Canadian Wildfires in 2024 in this article.

Volcanic SO2 from Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula reaches Europe

CAMS has been closely following the volcanic activity on Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula, which has been active throughout the year. During the summer, eruptions were reported in July and August bringing the total number to six from this region during 2024.  

The plume resulting from the eruption on 22 August reached the European continent on 26 August with a signal detected in ground-level SO2 concentrations at several monitoring stations in France, Belgium, and Germany. The concentrations were high enough to potentially begin posing a risk to human health.  

Read more about CAMS monitoring of the volcanic activity in the Reykjanes peninsula. 

Near-continuous Saharan dust episodes affect Europe and America

Significant amounts of dust from the Saharan desert have been observed crossing the North Atlantic towards the Caribbean region, continuing a dynamic observed for a prolonged period of time. CAMS information on dust aerosol optical depth (AOD) shows regular pulses of Saharan dust crossing the Atlantic Ocean during June, July and August. Read our latest article on Saharan dust episodes affecting the Caribbean.

Air Quality – High levels of ozone in Europe during the Olympics

Even though surface ozone levels stayed within the regulatory thresholds of 120 µg/m3 this summer, CAMS observed three particular periods in which conditions were favorable to raising ozone concentrations: end of June, 17–20 July, and 29 July–4 August; which coincided with the celebration of the Olympic games in Paris. 

One of the environmental risks normally associated with summer and the associated increase in temperatures is the decrease in air quality, particularly associated with higher concentrations of ozone at ground level.   Learn more about ozone pollution during last summer in this article.

CAMS data key to analise wildfires’ impact worldwide

CAMS and ECMWF ongoing cooperation with several Earth Monitoring institutions led this summer to two separate reports addressing the evolution of relevant variables in earth's climate and atmosphere: the BAMS (Bulletin for American Meteorological Society) state of the climate report and the State of Wildfires 2023-2024 report published by a collective of scientists.  

CAMS scientists have contributed to BAMS state of the climate report  34th version by providing an analysis of aerosols, biomass burning and carbon monoxide evolution. In 2023 the three parameters were highly influenced by exceptional wildfires in Canada, which help to place this record-breaking event into context. Click below to learn more about the contributions of CAMS to BAMF and the data used in the State of Wildfires report.