Climate & Environment The swift march of climate change in North Carolina’s ‘ghost forests’ As sea levels rise and storms become more intense, scientists are racing to study the rapid loss of trees and marshland along the Outer Banks Loading... "Ghost forests" are found throughout the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge near Manns Harbor, N.C. “The forest is just retreating,” says Lanier, manager of this 160,000-acre federal wildlife refuge near North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Forests populated by towering pines, red maple, sweet gum and bald cypress have transitioned to shrub land. “This has happened over and over before in geologic time,” says Marcelo Ardón, an ecologist at North Carolina State University. AdvertisementA 2020 study detailed how ghost forests had crept across roughly 15 percent of the area’s unmanaged public land from 2001 to 2014.

Source: Washington Post May 13, 2022 05:16 UTC