Iskoras Palsa Mire Observatory

Site Overview & Permafrost Dynamics

Iskoras (Iškoras) is a high-latitude palsa mire complex in Karasjok, Finnmark. It represents one of northern Scandinavia's key permafrost monitoring observatories, featuring peat plateaus raised by frozen peat cores interspaced with thawing thermokarst erosion features.

Due to rising regional winter and summer temperatures, Iskoras exhibits rapid thermal degradation, block slumping, and expanding thaw ponds. Multi-year aerial monitoring at the site provides direct quantitative metrics for permafrost degradation near its climatic boundary.

Here is a 360° panorama from our archive!

Decade Time Series & Sensor Coverage

DroneLab@UiO's monitoring catalog at Iskoras spans 2015 through 2025 across multiple airborne remote sensing technologies:

• Decade Topographic Elevation Change (2015–2025): High-resolution Dem-of-Difference (DoD) tracking ground collapse, block displacement, and thermokarst pond evolution over a 10-year baseline.
• Airborne LiDAR (Zenmuse L1/L2): Bare-earth Digital Terrain Models (DTM) separating dwarf birch and lichen/moss canopy from underlying soil topography.
• Radiometric Thermal Mapping: Calibrated surface temperature mapping (°C) captured using Zenmuse H20T thermal sensors during peak late-summer thaw.
• Winter Snow Surface Models: High-resolution March photogrammetric surveys capturing winter snow pack distribution over peat plateaus.