The purpose of this research is to assess the accuracy of sea ice concentrations derived from AMSR-E data using ship observations from the 26 th Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition （ CHINARE） and Landsat-7 ETM + Imagery in Antarctic. The comparison of AMSR-E sea ice concentrations with ship observational data indicated a general linear relationship between the two types of observations （ R2 = 0 . 816）

but two types of data didn’t match each other quite well. AMSR-E tended to underestimate sea ice concentrations （ compared to ETM + ice concentrations）

with average ice concentration biases ranging from - 5. 33% to - 21. 5% and corresponding Root Mean Square Errors （ RMSEs） ranging from 13. 7% to 33. 8% . For the Landsat-7 ETM + sea ice type classification

the l argest errors occurred in areas of new ice; in such areas

new ice was recognized as seawater by AMSR-E owing to its emission of passive microwave radiation

which is different to that emitted from other first-year ice.