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.
Trekking out to my research sites near North Carolina s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged.Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina s Outer Banks. The trees growing in the water are small and stunted. Many are dead.
Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees.
As an ecologist studying wetland response to sea level rise, I know this flooding is evidence that climate change is altering landscapes along the Atlantic coast. It s emblematic of environmental changes that also threaten wildlife, ecosystems, and local farms and forestry businesses.
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