HOW TO USE GOCE LEVEL 2 PRODUCTS

The GOCE High-level Processing Facility (HPF) is in charge of the production of the following final level 2 products: Calibrated and corrected gravity gradients, precise science orbits and global gravity field models. These products represent the main input to all further applications of GOCE. In order to correctly apply these products the user has to know the definitions, conventions and standards adopted for their generation. The underlying assumptions are described in detail in two documents, which will be released together with the data products. These are the GOCE Standards and the GOCE Product Data Handbook. The standards provide detailed information about the reference systems, the transformations between the reference systems and the adopted geometrical and the dynamical models. The data handbook is intended to provide to the users all required information for the correct use of the products. It includes an overview of the mission and products, general definitions, mathematical and geophysical conventions as well as a description of formats. The paper summarizes the applied standards and conventions and introduces in detail the content of the global gravity field product.