Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Every human inhales 14 kg of air per day, and air pollution caused by human (e.g., road traffic, industrial process, agriculture) and natural (e.g., wildfires, dust storms) processes affects everybody on the planet, contributing to a growing list of health impacts. The composition of the atmosphere also plays a critical role in the climate system. A wide range of observational and model data are available for analysing the distribution and timing of air pollution episodes and their possible impacts. Yet navigating these datasets and understanding what they can reliably show is not always straightforward.

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) provides a wide range of open datasets on emission sources, atmospheric composition, and air pollution covering past, present, and future conditions, that can support your air quality reporting.

In this session, you will be guided through the CAMS data landscape: where to find key datasets, how they are built, what they can (and cannot) tell you, and common pitfalls to avoid.