WHQR
Rising seas a result of climate change are inundating North Carolina’s coast and killing off trees.
Along the coastal barrier islands of the Atlantic coast, maritime forests are home to mammals, reptiles, insects, plants, and migrating birds. They’re vital to coastal and storm resilience. And in areas undisturbed, some of these coastal trees date back to the 1st century.
In recent decades, commercial development has threatened these ecosystems. But research shows that another perhaps even greater threat is not only clearing forests, but burying them beneath the sea.
Ghostly forests of snags
You can see them from a plane, and even from space. Marshes along North Carolina’s coast, peppered with dying or already-dead trees. When I first moved to Wilmington, I was puzzled by them tall, lanky skeletons, pale limbs outstretched and barren. Void of life, and still standing.