Severnaya Zemlya any traces of land to the north of the wide strait between the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea that they navigated. The archipelago was not put on the map until the 1913–1915 Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition of icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Vaigach". The chief organiser and first captain of the Vaygach was officer Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak of the Imperial Russian Navy. The expedition was privately financed and was launched in 1910, being led by Boris Vilkitsky on behalf of the Russian Hydrographic Service. This venture accomplished its goal of exploring the uncharted areas of the continental side of the Northern
Severnaya Zemlya north from Siberia. The climate data below, taken from the Golomyanniy Meteorological Station gives an indication of the weather experienced in the archipelago. Severnaya Zemlya is a polar desert with sparse vegetation and permafrost at less than . Rare vascular plants include species of "Cerastium" and "Saxifraga". Non-vascular plants include the moss genera "Detrichum", "Dicranum", "Pogonatum", "Sanionia", "Bryum", "Orthothecium" and "Tortula", as well as the lichen genera "Cetraria", "Thamnolia", "Cornicularia", "Lecidea", "Ochrolechia" and "Parmelia". Common flowering plants of the high Arctic such as the purple saxifrage ("Saxifraga oppositifolia") and the Arctic poppy ("Papaver radicatum") also occur on Severnaya Zemlya. According