A comparison study was conducted to evaluate limitations of several atmospheric calibration techniques, including: Angular, Profile, and spectrally corrected and uncorrected LOWTRAN. To accomplish this, a thermal mapper was flown over a shoreline where water surface temperatures were measured coincidentally by a ground crew. The thermogram derived observed radiances were corrected using each of the atmospheric calibration methods so that ground surface temperatures could be predicted. The R.M.S. errors of these ground temperature predictions indicated that all calibration techniques yielded similar results at 1000-foot altitude. The error remained constant for the Profile and LOWTRAN calibration techniques to 6000-foot altitude, but the Angular results singularly indicated a pronounced altitude dependence in ground temperature prediction errors to 6000-foot altitude
