Sea level rise is killing trees along the Atlantic coast, creating ghost forests that are visible from space nancyonnorwalk.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nancyonnorwalk.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
April 15, 2021
Sea level rise is killing trees along the U.S. east coast, creating ‘ghost forests’ that are visible from space.
Ghost forest panorama in coastal North Carolina. Image via Emily Ury/ The Conversation
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.
Sea-level rise is creating ghost forests on an American coast | Climate change theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Something Is Killing Trees, Creating Ghost Forests Along The Atlantic Coast
EMILY URY, THE CONVERSATION
7 APRIL 2021
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.
DURHAM, N.C. Emily Ury remembers the first time she saw them. She was heading east from Columbia, North Carolina, on the flat, low-lying stretch of U.S. Highway 64 toward the Outer Banks. Sticking out of the marsh on one side of the road were not one but hundreds dead trees and stumps, the relic of a once-healthy forest that had been overrun by the inland creep of seawater. I was like, Whoa. No leaves; no branches. The trees were literally just trunks. As far as the eye could see, said Ury, who recently earned a biology Ph.D. at Duke University working with professors Emily Bernhardt and Justin Wright.