Subfossil bald cypress trees suggest localized, enduring effects of major climatic episodes on the Southeast Atlantic Coast of the United States

We present evidence from bald cypress trees suggesting the enduring impacts of major cooling periods on North America’s Southeast Atlantic coastline. We use radiocarbon dating, annual ring counts, and ring-width measurements of subfossil cypress to describe a decrease in lifespans and an increase in annual growth rate coinciding with the Vandal Minimum’s onset, c. 500 CE. Trees sprouting before this date attained significantly longer lifespans than those sprouting later. After c. 500 CE, lifespans significantly decreased over time. The last long-lived trees retrieved died at the beginning of the Little Ice Age, implying further the localized ecological impacts of large-scale climatic downturns on this location and, potentially, other near-coastal forests. Centuries-to-multi-millennia-old cypress are, however, still alive in Southeast old-growth pockets.