Abstract: According to the ASPeCt sea ice visual observation protocol, we extracted the sea ice edge from MODIS images and assessed the quality of AMSR-E SIC product using a corresponding MODIS Sea Ice Concentration(MODIS SIC). Results show that AMSR-E pixels located at the ice edges have a significantly different mean SIC value from the well-established 15% threshold. The correlation between AMSR-E and MODIS SIC is rather low with coefficients R²≤0.2 and the ASI algorithm underestimates sea ice edge concentrations in summer. Then transect analysis, applied on all the ice areas(including multi-year ice, one-year ice, new ice and open water), however, show that AMSR-E SIC and MODIS SIC have a good linear relationship with R² of 0.82 in summer and 0.81 in winter. When AMSR-E SIC value falls between 20% and 30%, it has larger errors compared with the other range of SIC values.