The ground-based Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) was deployed in Shouxian, China in 2008 to measure down-welling infrared radiances with high resolution. Based on AERI observations, we propose a new method for retrieving vertical temperature and water vapor profiles in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). The method exclusively uses NCEP-2, a global reanalysis data as a first-guess profile in an iterative recursive algorithm. The PBL profiles of temperature and moisture under clear sky conditions in Shouxian have been retrieved using this new method. Compared with coincident radiosonde measurements, we find that AERI is able to obtain more accurate temperature and water vapor profiles in the PBL. The retrieval results with high temporal resolution can be used to monitor the PBL stability and evolution.