Validation of GOCE gravity field models by means of orbit residuals and geoid comparisons

Three GOCE-based gravity field solutions have been computed by ESA’s high-level processing facility and were released to the user community. All models are accompanied by variance-covariance information resulting either from the least squares procedure or a Monte-Carlo approach. In order to obtain independent external quality parameters and to assess the current performance of these models, a set of independent tests based on satellite orbit determination and geoid comparisons is applied. Both test methods can be regarded as complementary because they either investigate the performance in the long wavelength spectral domain (orbit determination) or in the spatial domain (geoid comparisons). The test procedure was applied to the three GOCE gravity field solutions and to a number of selected pre-launch models for comparison. Orbit determination results suggest, that a pure GOCE gravity field model does not outperform the multi-year GRACE gravity field solutions. This was expected as GOCE is designed to improve the determination of the medium to high frequencies of the Earth gravity field (in the range of degree and order 50 to 200). Nevertheless, in case of an optimal combination of GOCE and GRACE data, orbit determination results should not deteriorate. So this validation procedure can also be used for testing the optimality of the approach adopted for producing combined GOCE and GRACE models. Results from geoid comparisons indicate that with the 2 months of GOCE data a significant improvement in the determination of the spherical harmonic spectrum of the global gravity field between degree 50 and 200 can be reached. Even though the ultimate mission goal has not yet been reached, especially due to the limited time span of used GOCE data (only 2 months), it was found that existing satellite-only gravity field models, which are based on 7 years of GRACE data, can already be enhanced in terms of spatial resolution. It is expected that with the accumulation of more GOCE data the gravity field model resolution and quality can be further enhanced, and the GOCE mission goal of 1–2 cm geoid accuracy with 100 km spatial resolution can be achieved.