A flexible implementation of an objective method for estimating sea surface velocities from remotely sensed sea surface temperature (SST) patterns is given. The method assumes, like previous methods, that the motion of thermal features results from advection. Other near-surface processes (i.e., diffusion and air-sea heat exchange), however, can also affect the near-surface thermal structure. It therefore becomes necessary to determine how these physical processes affect the percieved velocity determined from thermal gradient structure. Models were developed to quantitatively analyze the method's relative sensitivity to the degradation of thermal features due to near-surface physical processes. The results are used to quantify the attainable accuracy of the method for estimating near-surface velocity from satellite data.