Our coastal forest showed little interest from the first 10 hours of salt water in June 2022 and grew well throughout the year. We increased the exposure to 20 hours in June 2023, and the forest still appeared unblemished, though tulip poplar trees they were taking water from the soil slowly, which could be an early warning.

Things changed after a 30-hour exposure in June 2024. Tulip poplar leaves in the forest started turning red in mid-August, a few weeks earlier than usual. By mid-September the forest canopy was bare, as if winter had begun. This change did not happen in the nearby area where we were doing the same, but it is fresh water and not sea water.

The initial strength of our forest can be explained in part by the high salinity of the lake’s water, the inflow of fresh water from the rivers and the mixing of the sea. The rains that fell after the experiments in 2022 and 2023 washed away the minerals from the soil.

But a severe drought followed the 2024 experiment, so minerals remained in the soil there. The trees are longer in saline soils after our experiment in 2024 may have exceeded their ability to tolerate these conditions.

The seawater being dumped from the Southern California fire is extremely salty seawater. It’s cultures there very dryespecially compared to our East Coast jungle environment.

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Our research team is still working to understand all of the factors that limit forests’ tolerance to saline water, and how our results apply to other ecosystems such as Los Angeles.

The leaves on the trees turning from green to brown well before they fall was amazing, but there were other surprises hidden in the soil beneath our feet.

Rainwater that seeps into the ground is usually clean, but just one month after being exposed to salt water for just 10 hours in 2022, the ground water turned brown and stayed that way for two years. The brown color comes from carbon-based leach material from dead plants. It is the same process as making tea.