The former yard foreman and showroom manager of a family-owned, New York-based lumber company, Matthew Beckerle currently provides counter support and organization for Speonk Lumber as a stock counter sales professional. An avid conservation professional, Matthew Beckerle is interested in the link between ocean health and trees.
Many people know that trees improve environmental health by removing carbon dioxide from the air and cooling the earth. However, they may not realize that trees also play a big role in ocean health.
The reason trees help with ocean health ties back to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Normally, CO2 moves between the surface of the ocean and the atmosphere until both levels are equal. This means that the higher the atmospheric CO2 levels are, the more CO2 is absorbed by the ocean. As it stands, roughly 25 percent of all CO2 emissions produced by human activities is absorbed by the ocean.
As the ocean absorbs more CO2, the pH of the seawater changes and it becomes more acidic, a process known as ocean acidification. When the water becomes more acidic, it threatens the viability of many marine ecosystems. Since trees absorb CO2 in the atmosphere, planting more trees actually reduces ocean acidification, since the ocean water must absorb less atmospheric CO2 to achieve equilibrium.
