The emissivity model for rough sea surface [Remote Sensing Environ. 24, 313-329 (1988)] is inspected in light of the measured surface emissivity. In the presence of moderate wind (5 m/s or less), the emissivity model is found to be adequate for small to moderate view angles. For large view angles, the discrepancy between the computed and the measured emissivity is large, but one can reduce this considerably by incorporating the reflected sea surface emission into the emissivity model. In addition, examination of the spectral variation of the observed and computed emissivity suggests the need for refined measurements of the complex refractive index. An improved model is constructed to calculate the rough sea surface emissivity that can be used to provide accurate estimates of sea surface skin temperatures from remotely sensed radiometric measurements. An important feature of the improved model is that the computed sea surface emissivity is only weakly dependent on wind speed for most view angles used in practice.