In conclusion, all ECMWF products, both from the operational model and the ERA Interim reanalysis, have been identified as adequate sources of data for estimation of ZHD at a global scale with 1–3 mm, provided an appropriate height reduction is performed. The calculation of ZHD with millimetric precision is of great importance in various applications such as the computation of the dry tropospheric correction and the inverse barometer correction for satellite altimeter measurements, being particularly relevant in the context of the development of the GPD algorithm for computing the wet tropospheric correction for coastal altimetry.