Scientists are now studying “ghost forests”—tracts of dead trees that now hug the East Coast of America, especially around the Florida “Big Bend”, which is dying at an “unprecedented rate.”
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, these forests are “the watery remains of a once verdant woodland” and play a crucial role in climate change. In many areas, rising sea levels have combined with land sinking from the last ice age, as is currently happening in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
As the globe warms, sea levels rise, and more saltwater encroaches land, “invading seawater advances and overtakes the freshwater that trees rely upon for sustenance,” according to NOAA. “The salty water slowly poisons trees, leaving a haunted ghost forest of dead and dying timber.”
“Still standing in or near brackish water, the decaying trees of a ghost forest resemble giant graying pillars that protrude into the air,” NOAA said. Wood Central understands “Ghost Forests” appear from Maine to Miami and bend back around the Gulf of Mexico, leaving gaunt tree skeletons” stripped of leaves and bark. Gradually, forests and bogs give way to more salt-tolerant thickets.
“I’ve seen palm tree ghost forests in Florida and red spruce ghost forests in Canada,” said Matt Kirwan, an associate professor with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, who spoke to USA Today. “They all share a similar origin.”
Research drilled inside dead trees
Mr Kirwan is part of a team that recently drilled into trees to see what’s inside and understand the role forests play in the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
A recent study based on the drilling research finds that standing dead trees in ghost forests have tiny organisms that convert methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to carbon dioxide, which is less potent: “This insight is another piece of the puzzle as officials consider the trade-offs for how to manage these landscapes,” the US Geological Survey said in a statement.
Ghost forests appear all along the East Coast.
The East Coast is a particular concern, as these transitions to ghost forests are taking place up and down the Atlantic coast, according to the USGS:
- A group of University of South Florida researchers concluded that Florida’s Big Bend’s coastal forest is dying at “an unprecedented rate.”
- Post-tropical Cyclone Sandy left a ghost forest of white cedar in New Jersey in 2012.
- In the Chesapeake Bay region, over 80,000 acres of forest have turned to marsh in the last 150 years. That number could increase fivefold by 2100, Kirwan predicts.