Why #Ecologists Are Haunted by the Rapid Growth of #GhostForests
A study in North Carolina of dying #trees may represent a foreboding preview of what may come to #coastal #ecosystems worldwide.
by Jim Morrison
"As the ocean intrudes and saltwater rises, it kills trees and creates these ghost forests—bare trunks, and stumps, ashen tombstones marking a once-thriving coastal ecosystem. In North Carolina, #pine, #RedMaple, #sweetgum and bald #cypress forests are being replaced by saltmarsh. Eventually, that saltmarsh will be replaced by open water, a shift that leads to significant and complex costs to the environment and the local economy. The loss of forests will reduce carbon storage, further fueling climate change, and the agriculture industry, timber interests will suffer as saltwater moves inland."