A strategy to calibrate errors of Earth gravity models

• Three gravity models of CHAMP, GRACE and GOCE missions are compared in Fennoscandia.
• The simple and weighted means of each harmonic coefficient are equalised.
• A strategy for error calibration the gravity models.

In this paper, three independent Earth gravity models (EGMs) of GO_CONS_GCF_2_TIM_R4, AIUB-GRACE03S and ULux_CHAMP2013s are combined to degree and order 120. The geoid models of these EGMs are computed and compared with the Global Positioning System (GPS) and levelling data over Fennoscandia. We found that the simple mean of these geoid models is closer to the GPS/levelling data than their weighted mean. This means that errors of the EGMs are not properly estimated as they are used in the weighted mean solution. We develop a method based on solving a nonlinear condition adjustment model to calibrate the errors so that the result of weighted mean becomes the same as that of the simple mean. Numerical results show slight changes in the errors of GRACE03S but large ones in those of GO_CONS_GCF_2_TIM_R4 and ULux_CHAMP2013s. Furthermore, the weighted mean solution considering the calibrated errors and some additional constraints is better than GOCO03S to degree and order 120 over Fennoscandia.