Ghost forests are creeping along NC s coast
KATIE CAMERO, The News & Observer
April 11, 2021
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EAST LAKE, N.C. (AP) Dead. Pale. Devoid of limbs.
No, not the stars of horror stories, but families of trees sprawled across America’s East Coast that are being swallowed by swarms of salty ocean water.
Scientists call them “ghost forests” and they’re becoming more common as human-driven climate change paves the way for more frequent extreme weather events that cause abrupt environmental changes nearly impossible to recover from.
They’re also getting bigger. So much so, the barren land can be seen from space.
Apr 08, 2021 02:28 PM EDT
This is not the stars of horror stories, families of trees carelessly spread out across the East Coast of America have been swallowed by a flood of salty ocean water.
Researchers refer to them as ghost forests - and they re becoming more usual as climate change driven by humans paves the way for more constant extreme events of weather that lead to sudden changes in the environment almost impossible to recover from.
(Photo : Getty Images)
Rising Sea Levels
They are also expanding. So much so, the barren land can be viewed from space. According to a Duke University study released on Sunday in the journal Ecological Applications, a particular forest in North Carolina that is within the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, home to animals that endangered and unique wetlands, has lost 11% of its cover protecting the tree because of rising sea levels since 1985.
of lost and broken greens.
A ghost forest in the Nags Head Woods ecological preserve, North Carolina (Image Credit NC Wetlands from Raleigh via Wikimedia Commons).
This poem is inspired by recent research, which has found that sea level rise is killing trees along the Atlantic Coast, creating ‘ghost forests’ that are visible from space.
Ghost forests are landscapes that form when saltwater from the sea begins to flood woodland areas that contain freshwater-dependent trees. This saltwater slowly poisons the trees, and as they die, all that is left behind are ghostly grey and withered trunks, which can survive for decades in this dried-up barren state. Throughout the United States’ East Coast, trees are dying off as rising seas and higher storm surges brought about by climate change push saltwater farther inland. Not only are the ghost forests expanding because of climate change, but they are also likely to be making these hostile conditions worse through a climate feedback lo
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