Working in complete Arctic darkness made this scientific mission even more extraordinarily difficult. It’s also what made the Polar Night Experiment a first-of-its-kind campaign. Scientists have collected Arctic measurements of this nature during the day before, says Mariani, but never during polar night “when it’s the absolute coldest, darkest period of time. … We’ve just never done this before.”

Because conditions are so difficult, the polar night is one of Earth’s least understood atmospheric environments. That’s also what makes it so intriguing to scientists. How does the atmosphere behave when complete darkness coincides with severe temperatures? What are the cloud and aerosol dynamics?

To figure these things out, “you need to take measurements from the surface, and you need to get in a plane and literally fly through the clouds — fly right through the storms and the clouds and the severe weather,” says Mariani. While up in the skies, he collects valuable data throughout the invariably bumpy ride.

Once back on the ground, researchers compare the real polar night measurements to their previous computer models to see how they jibe. It’s all part of a process of improving their understanding of what’s going on up there.

The mission was a huge collaborative effort, says Mariani, bringing in an international cadre of scientists intent on testing their high-tech instruments in real-world experiments.

In recent years, the increasing number and power of atmospheric rivers hitting cities and towns along Canada’s West Coast has regularly made the news cycle. (As the carbon load in the atmosphere heats the planet, the air holds more moisture and heat. Since 1980 alone, that has made atmospheric rivers more frequent, larger and moister.)

Though these West Coast atmospheric rivers are expected (though no less impactful), Mariani focuses on the atmospheric rivers that have begun hitting the Arctic with increasing frequency. Communities like Iqaluit are not built to withstand flooding and extreme levels of rainfall, he says. Meanwhile, Tuktoyaktuk, a Northwest Territories-based hamlet on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, faces the threat of being washed away, pounded by the waves at the same time as its permafrost melts away.

Rare weather events are simply becoming more common everywhere, says Mariani, who notes that the Far North is particularly affected. “It’s catastrophic,” he says of the situation facing residents of Tuktoyaktuk. “And it’s very expensive. You can’t just pick up and move, right? So it’s a huge problem.”

He calls the climate changes in the Arctic a wake-up call for all Canadians and, indeed, people around the globe. “In terms of the overall picture of climate change on a global scale, the Arctic is the canary in a coal mine,” says Mariani. “You can kind of use it as your early warning system, if you will.” The people living in the Far North will suffer, but the changing climate has global implications for everything from air quality to sea levels.

But knowledge is power, and Mariani is confident that the atmospheric work he and his colleagues are doing will help governments to make informed policy decisions around everything from emissions regulations to infrastructure needs. And as the Northwest Passage opens to shipping, he knows captains and crew will need reliable weather forecasting and sea-ice predictions.

“It really does tick all the boxes,” says Mariani as he underlines the importance of Arctic atmospheric research.