Evaluation of recent combined global geopotential models in Brazil

Abstract The aim of this paper is to present a quantitative analysis of the adequacy of the main currently existing combined Global Geopotential Models (GGMs) for modeling normal-geoid heights throughout Brazil. As major advances have been reached since mid-2016 in the combined GGMs elaboration and development, the main objective of this analysis is to verify if, in fact, the most recent models present superior or equivalent performance to the most performant previous models. The analysis was based on comparisons between normal-geoid height values obtained fromGNSS/leveling solutions and values calculated from GGMs XGM2016, GOCO05C, EIGEN-6C4 and EGM2008, according to different geopotential functionals - geoid height and height anomaly - and in different degrees of development, always through the relative method. This procedure was applied to 997 stations which carry information of both ellipsoidal and normal-orthometric heights, located all over Brazil. As a main result, it was observed the superior performance of the recent combined GGMs, GOCO05C and XGM2016, when compared to the older models, EIGEN-6C4 and EGM2008, when all of them are developed up to degree 720, the maximum degree of the recent models; and a approximate equality of results when all of the models are used in their individual maximum degrees.