CAMAERA at the ICAP 2026 meeting
The International Cooperative for Aerosol Prediction (ICAP) is a grassroots community of people who work in operational global aerosol prediction and monitoring. The ICAP meetings are functional operational workshops used to discuss best practices and find optimal common solutions to challenges, as well as to plan and coordinate global operational aerosol forecasting activities.
Recent CAMAERA results, focusing on the use of machine learning techniques to simulate desert dust aerosols, were presented by Samuel Rémy, from HYGEOS, at the 16th ICAP meeting, held at ECMWF premises in Bonn, between 10th and 12th of June. The updates of the operational global CAMS service, such as the recent implementation of cycle 50R1 IFS-COMPO on 12th of May 2026, were also highlighted in his presentation.
Providers of remote sensing aerosol products (EUMETSAT, ESA, NASA) also attended the meeting, which led to fruitful discussions about the best use of these products in models, and how to compare them. In particular, the discussions focused on the comparison of simulated and retrieved speciated aerosol volume fractions derived from remote sensing polarimeters, such as POLDER/PARASOL, PACE/SPEXone and, in the soon future, 3MI onboard EPS-SG.
Comparison of CAMS simulated (top) versus retrieved by SPEXone volume fraction of fine non absorbing aerosols, averaged over January-October 2025.