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Alternatively, there is a customer-supplied script (which runs on Microsoft Windows) that computes geopotential on model levels for a specific location. This script was written for the ERA-Interim dataset, but can be adapted to ERA5. Please see the article ERA-Interim: compute geopotential on model levels for details.

For users experienced in Metview, there is a built-in function called mvl_geopotential_on_ml.

Geopotential height

In ERA5, and often in meteorology, heights (the height of the land and sea surface, or specific heights in the atmosphere) are not represented as geometric height, or altitude (in metres above the spheroid), but as geopotential height (in metres above the geoid, which is represented by the mean sea level in ERA5). Note, that ECMWF usually archive the geopotential (in m2/s2), not the geopotential height.

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