The threshold of sea ice concentration (SIC) is the basis for accurately calculating sea ice extent based on passive microwave (PM) remote sensing data. However, the PM SIC threshold at the sea ice edge used in previous studies and released sea ice products has not always been consistent. To explore the representable value of the PM SIC threshold corresponding on average to the position of the Arctic sea ice edge during summer in recent years, we extracted sea ice edge boundaries from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sea ice product (MOD29 with a spatial resolution of 1 km), MODIS images (250 m), and sea ice ship-based observation points (1 km) during the fifth (CHINARE-2012) and sixth (CHINARE-2014) Chinese National Arctic Research Expeditions, and made an overlay and comparison analysis with PM SIC derived from Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS, with a spatial resolution of 25 km) in the summer of 2012 and 2014. Results showed that the average SSMIS SIC threshold at the Arctic sea ice edge based on ice-water boundary lines extracted from MOD29 was 33%, which was higher than that of the commonly used 15% discriminant threshold. The average SIC threshold at sea ice edge based on ice-water boundary lines extracted by visual interpretation from four scenes of the MODIS image was 35% when compared to the average value of 36% from the MOD29 extracted ice edge pixels for the same days. The average SIC of 31% at the sea ice edge points extracted from ship-based observations also confirmed that choosing around 30% as the SIC threshold during summer is recommended for sea ice extent calculations based on SSMIS PM data. These results can provide a reference for further studying the variation of sea ice under the rapidly changing Arctic.
Keywords: MODIS; passive microwave remote sensing; sea ice concentration threshold; sea ice edge; ship-based observations.