In order to study the detection capabilities of the new generation of shipborne infrared detection systems under sea fog conditions, the Yellow Sea sea fog was used as the experimental environment, the uncooled infrared thermal imager was used as the detector. Different infrared radiation sources were used as detection objects in different intensity sea fogs to perform imaging experiments, a quantitative study was made based on the attenuation model of infrared radiation in different conditions.The attenuation model can be divided into two categories: physical model and empirical model. The attenuation curves under different intensities of sea fog were compared and analyzed, the results of several measurements were analyzed. It is shown that in the case of light fog, the results calculated by the physical model are almost the same as the observation results; for dense sea fog, the results calculated by the empirical model are very close to the actual observations; while under the heavy sea fog conditions, the actual observation results are more closer to empirical models.