The South American gravimetric geoid: GEOID2021

The South American gravimetric geoid model, named GEOID2021, was computed thanks to a collaboration of several institutions, companies and universities of South America. The model covers the area between 15°N and 60°S in latitude and 100°W and 30°W in longitude, with a grid resolution of 5' x 5'. It is based on 959,404 terrestrial gravimetric points, the XGM2019 global geopotential model up to degree and order 200 and the SRTMv3 digital terrain model. The short wavelengths of the solution were estimated via Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) with the modified Stokes kernel proposed by Vaníček and Kleusberg (1987). On the other hand, long and medium wavelengths were removed and replaced in the framework of a remove-compute-restore procedure. Regions without gravimetric observations were completed using XGM2019 to its full degree. The calculation of the geoid model was performed by the Canadian package SHGEO (Stokes-Helmert Geoid Software). The comparison between the estimated geoid heights and GPS/levelling data at 4464 points in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela (2931, 176, 464, 703 and 190 points, respectively) shows differences with an RMS ranging from 34 cm for Argentina to 92 cm for Ecuador. The geoid model is provided in ISG format 2.0 (ISG Format Specifications), while the file in its original data format is available at the model ISG webpage.