In July, it's that time again. A research team of Russian and German scientists will make their way to northern Siberia, specifically to the Lena Delta in order to take a closer look on the permafrost. But why scientists go to Siberia - which at least feels like the end of the world? What they do there anyway?

Both questions are legitimate and not so easy to answer, for there are many very different reasons. Most scientists who travel to the most remote regions of the Arctic have one thing in common: They want to know something about the climate. For some of them the research is all about the climate thousands of years ago. Others are interested in the "here and now". And still others are already busy with the future or want to know if life is possible on other planets with similar climatic conditions as in the Arctic.

One thing is though certain, the Arctic is a very good place to answer all these questions. In permafrost areas, the traces of the past are conserved like in a giant freezer. They are known as climate archives available, retrievable and decipherable by the researchers. In addition, the Arctic is kind of a "chill out area" for the climate of the earth cooling our planet. It is not only important that there is very cold in the winter during the long polar night, but spacious tundra landscapes also take large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the form of plant remains in the soil. Over thousands of years, massive peat layers have been formed in this way, that are now deep frozen and preserved as permafrost.

In looking forward, scientists who are searching for traces of the past are in fact preparing those that deal with the future. Because of the increasing global warming, the Arctic is thawing and the carbon on the peat could be decomposed and released as carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. This in turn would contribute to global warming. This raises the crucial question: How safe is the carbon stored in Arctic permafrost?

In our research team, we examine if and how quickly the thawing will happen in the changing climate conditions. Not only does the temperature play an important role, but also the soil composition, soil moisture, the winter snow cover and vegetation.

To learn about the changes in the permafrost, we need a lot of data. We are using computer simulations that show how the permafrost response to climate change. The main basis of our work are different measurement instruments that can withstand harsh weather conditions in the Arctic and require regular maintenance. Each year, therefore, a Russian-German research team travels to the tiny island in the Lena Delta Samoilov, checks and repairs, if necessary, measuring instruments and builds new research tools. The research project that began in 1998 on a small scale, has become in this way to a solid Russian-German cooperation.
We will report regularly throughout the summer as the cooperation continues.

Moritz Langer

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Main page of the blog "Tundra Stories": http://page21.org/blogs/59-samoylov