Remote Sensing of Temperature Profile and Surface Emissivity over Land

A physical method, based on the simplification of surface radiation terms in remote sensing equations, has been suggested to retrieve surface temperature, vertical temperature profile and surface emissivity from the first eight channel observations of TIROS—N/HIRS-2. Analyses of several examples indicate that much more accurate air temperatures in lower atmospheres than a statistical technique can be obtained by this method. The results of surface temperature and surface emissivity are also reasonable