It is well known that in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere, the CO2 laser band (00011--10001) transitions are populated by both local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and non-LTE mechanisms. Examination of infrared (IR) limb emission measurements from the Cryogenic Infrared Radiance Instrumentation for Shuttle (CIRRIS 1A) experiment clearly illustrates this effect. The presence of non-LTE emissions, if left unaccounted for, will severely degrade the retrieval of kinetic temperature profiles. We have applied a non-LTE compensation technique whereby the non-LTE component is modeled and the resulting non-LTE radiance is subtracted from the measured radiances. The kinetic temperature profile is then retrieved utilizing the modified data. As a means of validating this approach, we have compared the resulting temperature profiles to ones retrieved using the 792 cm-1 Q branch of CO2, the (11101--10002) transition, which is not significantly affected by non-LTE excitation. ¿ 2000 American Geophysical Union