Petty and Katsaros (1994) derived a parameterization for the effective incidence angle of reflected microwave radiation from an ocean surface for the frequencies and incidence angle of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I). The effective incidence angle can be expressed as a function of wind speed and atmospheric optical depth. Simulated SSM/I brightness temperatures were calculated for a set of atmospheres using a) the Petty and Katsaros effective incidence angle, and b) a simple reflection from a horizontal surface. Simulated retrievals of surface wind speed (SWS) were generated in each case using the empirically derived Navy standard algorithm (Goodberlet et al., 1990). RMS errors were 21% for case (a) and 40% for case (b), indicating that the empirical brightness temperature-SWS relationship is reproduced more closely in simulations by using the incidence-angle-corrected brightness temperatures.