During the SGP (Southern Great Plains) '97 experiment, brightness temperature images from four days were collected over the El Reno and ARM Cart sites using the TIMS (Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner) instrument. Pixel resolution of most TIMS imagery is approximately 12 meters. One additional image has 4 meter resolution. Methods to correct brightness temperatures for atmospheric effects and surface emissivity are described and compared. Since satellite-based thermal-IR radiometers have coarser resolutions, the 12 meter TIMS data are aggregated to larger pixel sizes. The larger pixel dimensions are representative of the ASTER instrument (90 m), which will be on the EOS AM-1 platform, radiometers on the NOAA-AVHRR (1 km) and GOES (4 km) satellites. The effect of sensor resolution on the spatial distribution of brightness temperatures is evaluated. The implications of sensor resolution on surface energy computations are discussed