He was one of the first humans to winter in Antarctica, as part of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, and became an internationally renowned meteorologist, also working for over 10 years in the United States.

Arctowski was instrumental in restoring Polish independence after the First World War, after which he returned to Poland, where he continued a prolific academic career, having even declined an offer to become Minister of Education.

At the time World War II broke out, Arctowski and his wife were in America, and they were unable to return; he spent the final part of his career working as a researcher at the Smithsonian until his retirement, and died in 1958 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Several geographical features, the Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station and a medal of the National Academy of Sciences are named in his honor.

Henryk Arctowski was born in Warsaw on 15 July 1871 to the Artzt family, whose ancestors came to Poland in the 17th century from Württemberg, Germany.

On a lecture tour in London he met the American actress and opera singer Arian Jane Addy, whom he married in March 1909.

[1][3] His name has been given to a phenomenon in which a halo resembling a rainbow, with two other partial arcs symmetrical to the main one, forms around the sun as light is refracted through ice crystals in the atmosphere.