Along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, sea levels are rising due to climate changes. How? Salt water is going increasingly further inland messing up ecosystems across the Eastern coastline of the country. The encroaching briny water is killing off coastal woodlands in locations such as North Carolina. The murderous water leaves behind ‘ghost forests’ of lifeless trees.
There’s a new study to suggest that ghost forests have a bit of a, um, lingering effect. Yes, we can’t really be delicate about this. Tree farts are a thing, and they’re contributing to climate change in a negative way. Please stop laughing. This is a serious matter.
These dead trees, which are also known as ‘snags’, break wind (so to speak), they release greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. The findings of this research were recently published in an issue of Biogeochemistry. Of course, tree farts still pale in comparison to soil emissions. However, they are still significant enough to increase the total emissions of an ecosystem by around 25 percent.
The study’s researchers maintain that, by quantifying the carbon emissions of these ghost forests, we will come to see how important these excess emissions will be in the future as sea levels continue to rise and tree levels continue to drop.
Keran Gedan, a coastal ecologist at George Washington University who was not a member of the research team behind the study, said, “The emergence of ghost forests is one of the biggest changes happenings in response to sea level rise. As forests convert to wetlands, we expect over long timescales that’s going to represent a substantial carbon sink.”
Why is that you may wonder? Well, it’s due to the fact that wetlands tend to store more carbon than forests. However, until the conversion is complete, the dead trees will be a ‘major greenhouse gas resource.’ Ghost forests are no longer absorbing carbon dioxide to power new growth. As their wood rots, the carbon they once stored is released back into the atmosphere.
For the studies, researchers measured the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emitted by dead pine and bald cypress trees in five ghost forests of the Albermarle-Pamlico Peninsula in North Carolina over several summers. The team used the same technique to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions of the soil in each of the poisoned forests.
Overall, the soil emitted about four times the amount of greenhouse gases of standing dead trees and the snags contributed to about a fifth of the ecosystem’s total emissions. As Melinda Martinez, an environmental scientist from North Carolina State and the study’s lead author, says in a statement, “Even though these standing dead trees are not emitting as much as the soils, they’re still emitting something, and they definitely need to be accounted for. Even the smallest fart counts.”
We’ll end on that note. Hopefully, you enjoyed this article as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Stay tuned for the high-brow, investigative work that you’ve become accustomed to enjoying. We’ll see you next week.
