Monitoring the rapidly changing Arctic is vital to climate science. However installing and maintaining real-time ocean observing infrastructure in Canada’s remote and icy north is complex. Every instrument must be designed to withstand sub-freezing temperatures on land, in the water, and⎯for most of the year⎯under sea ice. Access to a reliable high-speed Internet connection in remote regions can be challenging, and that’s assuming you’ve figured out how to transport the specialized high-tech gear thousands of kilometres to the Arctic circle in the first place.

After five years of gathering real-time Arctic Ocean and sea ice data, Ocean Networks Canada’s (ONC) Cambridge Bay community observatory infrastructure received a major overhaul in September 2017. In...