Spooky ‘ghost forests’ are rapidly spreading across North Carolina, becoming so ubiquitous that they’re visible from space.
A pair of satellite images from October 2005 and October 2024 show the spread of dead trees on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, home of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
In the images, the ghost forest appears light brown and stands out against the healthy, bright green forest.
NASA data shows that over the past 20 years, the watery remains of what was once a green forest have grown substantially and spread inland.
A 2021 study found that 11 percent of forest land in the state’s largest coastal wildlife refuge became ghost forests between 1985 and 2019.
This is due to rising levels of seals which are pushing seawater into the soils and fresh groundwater that trees depend on for their sustenance.
The salt water slowly poisons the trees, leaving behind macabre and lifeless forests.
Even North Carolina’s iconic bald cypress forests, which are among the oldest trees in the United States, are falling victim to this trend.
Satellite images taken in October 2005 (left) and October 2024 (right) show the expansion of the ghost forest on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula in North Carolina.
Sea level across North Carolina is rising between three and four millimeters per year, about three times faster than the global average, according to NASA Earth Observatory.
“However, forest dieback in the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge has not exactly followed the rate of sea level rise,” the space agency shared.
“Instead, these forests suffered a particularly large extinction in 2011 following a severe drought and the direct impact of Hurricane Irene.”
This is according to the 2021 study, which was published in the journal Ecological Applications. The researchers concluded that ghost forest formation peaked between 2011 and 2012.
“The drought reduced river flows and allowed salt water to flow upstream and through irrigation canals, killing trees in the process.”
As saltwater invades coastal forests, trees lose their foliage and bark and become pale and leafless.
Over time, these trees fall and decay. But while they still stand, they have a distinctly macabre appearance.
This is because salt water damages the roots, leaves and contaminates the resources that trees need to survive.
In this image from 2024, the ghost forest appears light brown and stands out against the healthy, bright green forest.
Excessive levels of salt in soils can damage a tree’s roots, making it difficult for them to absorb water and nutrients.
This leads to nutrient imbalances and deficiencies that can make trees sick and eventually kill them.
Saltwater can also draw water from leaves faster than trees can replace it, causing them to turn brown and drop prematurely.
This hinders a tree’s ability to absorb energy from the sun.
And when salt water replaces fresh groundwater, trees lose their water source and suffer drought stress even when there is abundant water underground.
“The closer a forest is to sea level, the greater the risk of tree death and ghost forest detection,” Xi Yang, an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia, told NASA’s Earth Observatory.
Rising sea levels are wiping out large swaths of coastal cypress and pine forests, causing them to lose their foliage and bark and turn into pale, leafless trunks.
And land development is making this problem even worse.
“You can also see the effects of climate change colliding with human development in Landsat images like this one,” Duke University ecologist Emily Bernhard told NASA’s Earth Observatory.
‘Marshes change location over time as sea level rises, but cypress forests have nowhere to go. “They are already surrounded by farmland or other development, so these iconic wetlands are being squeezed and dying in mass mortality events,” he added.
The combination of these pressures is so damaging that it is killing trees that have survived everything nature has thrown at them for thousands of years.
North Carolina bald cypress trees are among the oldest in the United States.
Known for their reddish-brown bark, needle-like green leaves, and clusters of gnarled “knees” around their trunks, these massive trees thrive in freshwater swamps and can reach heights of more than 100 feet, according to the Observatory of NASA Earth.
But now, these ancient trees are being reduced to lifeless ghosts as saltwater invades the wetlands they call home.
North Carolina is not the only state seeing the rise of ghost forests. These haunting trees are popping up all over the East Coast, from Florida to Maine.
Healthy coastal forests serve as natural buffers against storm surges and erosion. But as rising global temperatures increase the pressure on these trees, North Carolina and other East Coast states are losing that protection.