Rising sea levels could kill off 500-year-old trees in ancient New Jersey forest

Dark water formed an eddy around Steve Eisenhauer’s boots as they sank into the muck at the base of a 90-foot blackgum tree so old its roots were deep in this ground when the Pilgrims landed.

Scientists estimate the age of blackgums in an old growth forest surrounded by Bear Swamp in Cumberland County, N.J., range from 400 to 500 years, making it among the most ancient of trees in the most ancient forest of its kind surviving in the Northeast U.S.

But sea-level rise fueled by warmer oceans and sinking land is pushing saltwater ever closer to the trees, with the potential to kill them in the not-so-distant future.

Less than half a mile away, hundreds of old-growth trees already are dead from rising salt levels in what once was mostly a freshwater stream. Those dead trees jutted gray and naked into the late fall sky during a recent hike with Eisenhauer through the remote part of an old growth forest, which lies within the massive 6,765 acre Glades Wildlife Refuge owned by Natural Lands.

Read more: http://www2.philly.com/science/climate/a/climate-change-sea-level-rise-nj-natural-lands-glades-wildlife-refuge-sourgum-trees-20181211.html