Haunting ‘ghost forests’ in North Carolina are visible from space – and the disturbing reason behind them

Haunted “ghost forests” are rapidly spreading across North Carolina, becoming so ubiquitous that they are visible from space.

A pair of satellite images from October 2005 and October 2024 show the distribution of the dead trees on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, home to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

In the images, the ghost forest appears light brown and stands out against the bright green, healthy forest.

NASA data shows that the watery remains of a once-green forest have grown significantly in size over the past two decades and extend further inland.

A 2021 study found that 11 percent of forest area in the state’s largest coastal wildlife refuge became ghost forest between 1985 and 2019.

This is due to rising seal levels pushing seawater into the soil and fresh groundwater that trees depend on for their livelihood.

The salt water slowly poisons the trees, leaving eerie, lifeless forests behind.

Even North Carolina’s iconic bald cypress forests, which are among the oldest trees in the US, are falling victim to this trend.

Sea levels along North Carolina are rising about three to four millimeters per year, about three times faster than the global average, according to NASA Earth Observatory.

“However, the death of forests in the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge is not exactly in sync with the rate of sea level rise,” the space agency said.

“Instead, these forests saw particularly large diebacks in 2011 due to a severe drought and a direct hit by Hurricane Irene.”

This is evident from the 2021 study published in the journal Ecological Applications. The researchers concluded that ghost forest formation peaked between 2011 and 2012.

‘The drought reduced the flow of rivers and allowed salt water to flow upstream and through irrigation canals, killing trees.’

As saltwater invades coastal forests, trees shed their leaves and bark, becoming pale, leafless snags.

Eventually these trees fall and decompose. But while they’re still standing, they look distinctly creepy.

This is because salt water damages roots and leaves and contaminates the resources trees need to survive.

Too much salt in the soil can damage a tree’s roots, making it difficult for them to absorb water and nutrients.

This leads to imbalances and nutrient deficiencies that can make trees sick and ultimately kill them.

Salt water can also drain water from leaves faster than trees can replace it, causing them to turn brown and fall 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 from drought stress, even when there is plenty of water underground.

“The closer a forest is to sea level, the greater the risk of tree mortality and the detection of ghost forests,” Xi Yang, an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia, told NASA Earth Observatory.

And land development is making this problem worse.

“You can also see in Landsat images like this that the effects of climate change are colliding with human development,” ecologist Emily Bernhard of Duke University told NASA Earth Observatory.

“Swamps change locations over time as sea levels rise, but cypress forests have nowhere to go. They are already hemmed in by farmland or other development, so these iconic wetlands are being put under pressure and are instead dying through mass mortality,” she 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’s bald cypress trees are among the oldest in the US.

Known for their reddish-brown bark, green needle-like leaves and clusters of knobby ‘knees’ around their trunks, these enormous trees thrive in freshwater swamps and can reach heights of more than 30 meters, according to NASA Earth Observatory.

But now these ancient trees are being reduced to lifeless ghosts as saltwater invades the wetlands they call home.

North Carolina isn’t the only state where ghost forests are popping up. These fearsome 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 pressure on these trees, North Carolina and other East Coast states are losing that protection.