RIASSUNTO
The progressive reduction in summer Arctic sea ice cover has major implications for human activities in the northern polar zone, as well as playing a central role in the acceleration of global climate change. Technologies presently employed for synoptic monitoring of the properties of the polar sea ice fields do not provide the level of detail that is required for data assimilation and validation of sophisticated coupled climate models, or for operational exploitation by shipping and resource mapping, weather forecasting and some defense applications. In this paper we examine the contributions that HF radar might make towards improved measurement and characterization of sea ice.