Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Space borne microwave radiometers are important in remote sensing because they provide global measurements of key atmospheric and oceanic environmental parameters (e.g., water vapor, sea surface temperature, oceanic surface wind speed, etc.). However, these geophysical measurements do not come easily because the observed blackbody emissions are a complicated mixture of emissions (brightness temperatures) from the atmosphere and earth's surface. Further, these brightness temperatures depend upon the frequency of the microwave radiometers and the viewing geometry (incidence angle) at which these measurements are obtained. To aid in the interpretation of microwave radiometric observations, the theory of radiative transfer is used to develop math models known as radiative transfer models (RTM). One such RTM used by the Central Florida Remote Sensing Lab is known as RadTb. It is important to compare theoretical results with actual satellite radiometer measurements to validate the accuracy of the model; and it is the objective of this thesis to investigate the incidence angular dependence within RadTb.