The Lena expeditions have been carried out every summer since 1998 under the Agreement on Cooperation in Polar and Marine Research, signed by Russia's Education and Science Ministry and Germany's Federal Education and Science Ministry. Taking part in expeditions are experts with the Arctic and Antarctic R&D Institute at the Russian Meteorological Service, the Institute of Permafrost Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch, Yakutsk State University, St Petersburg State University, Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Institute of Forest Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch in Krasnoyarsk, the Ust-Lena State Nature Reserve, Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Hamburg University and Potsdam University, as well as students and postgraduates of these institutions. Every year, 10 to 40 people take part in the expeditions. Since 1998, the overall number of participants has reached 200, including permafrost experts, botanists, geographers, geologists, geochemists and representatives of other branches of science.
The expedition aims to research the changes that have occurred in the last 10,000 years, or are occurring in the ecosystem of the Laptev Sea, in order to gain insight into current and future climate and ecosystem changes.
The base camp of the expedition is on Samoilovsky Island in the Lena delta, the Ust-Lena Nature Reserve. It has a laboratory fitted out with up-to-date equipment (a gas chromatograph and various gas analysers) and automatic weather and soil research stations. Temperatures of the upper layer of permafrost are measured throughout the year in a 26-metre deep well. There are also plans to build a new laboratory complex.
Scientists conduct research not only on Samoilovsky Island but also in surrounding areas in the delta (other islands and the Bolshaya Trofimovskaya, Bykovskaya, Sardakhskaya, Glavnoye Ruslo and Bulkurskaya channels).
The joint project facilitates the international exchange of scientific information and Arctic exploration: hundreds of articles and dozens of scholarly works have been published, explaining the current and past condition of the Earth's geosphere, climate changes in the Arctic and supplying unique data relating to the climate, geology, biology, geochemistry and other branches of science.
The results of the joint expedition's work are comparable to those achieved during the International Polar Year in 1957, when the Soviet Union carried out extensive exploration of its northern seas. In particular, the results obtained by the expedition over many years of work enabled scientists to calculate methane emissions and carbon dioxide consumption in the yearly carbon cycle for this area and to identify the main microbiological processes responsible for producing and consuming greenhouse gases. Observations also point to the accelerating rate of the destruction of river banks, predominantly those with a high content of ice. Findings from such research may be needed to provide technological solutions for developing deposits of mineral resources in the areas around the Laptev and East-Siberian Seas.