Rising water is creating inland ghost forests in the US — SkimNews
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- Henry Yeung at the University of Virginia and colleagues used aerial imagery from 2012–2023 to map more than 260 million dead trees within 10 km of US Pacific, Gulf and Atlantic coasts and Great Lakes shorelines, producing the first nationwide ghost forest map.
- Over half of the mortality was concentrated in just 10% of mapped forests, with hotspots in both low-lying coastal forests and high-elevation inland wetlands far from saltwater.
- Tree mortality tripled in low-lying coastal forests where water inundation combined with rising salinity; North Carolina alone lost roughly 21% of its coastal forest between 1985 and 2021.
- Mortality rates also doubled around expanding freshwater bodies — including the Great Lakes — and inland wetlands, driven by record-high Great Lakes levels between 2013 and 2020 linked to heavier precipitation.
- Matthew Kirwan at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science said the study extends the ghost forest phenomenon "beyond sea level rise" to water in general, noting he "immediately think[s] of salt as the culprit" — these authors extended it to water.
- Michelle Sims at the World Resources Institute warned that dying trees release stored carbon and degraded forests may not regain their sequestration capacity, potentially reshaping US forest carbon sink estimates.
- Arya Iwantoro at the University of Plymouth cautioned that storms, pests, drought, drainage and soil conditions also drive tree death, so not every dead tree can be blamed on inundation alone.
Why it matters: With 260 million dead trees now mapped nationwide, US forest carbon storage estimates may be overstated because mortality is no longer confined to salty coastlines. The doubling of tree mortality around inland freshwater lakes and wetlands — driven by heavier precipitation rather than sea level rise — broadens the climate threat to forest carbon sinks well beyond the shoreline.
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