At a time when a new generation of satellite vertical sounders is going to be launched (including the Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Interferometer and Advanced Infrared Radiometric Sounder instruments), this paper assesses the possibilities of retrieving the vertical profiles of longwave clear-sky fluxes and cooling rates from the Television and Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) radiometers aboard the polar-orbiting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites since 1979. It focuses on two different methodologies that have been developed at Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (France). The first one uses a neural network approach for the parameterization of the links between the TOVS radiances and the longwave fluxes. The second one combines the geophysical variables retrieved by the Improved Initialization Inversion method and a forward radiative transfer model used in atmospheric general circulation models. The accuracy of these two methods is evaluated using both theoretical studies and comparisons with global observations.