Acid Rain Problems

Through the advancement of technology, the issue of the air surrounding the earth might have been one of the most often matters to be brought up and discussed among scientists and engineers. Acid rain is one of the more serious environmental problems and it is closely related to the air pollution. Nowadays, it has affected large part of US, Europe and Canada. People start to be concerned about acid rain since it is getting worse in the passed years. The effect of the acid rain most often leads to another bad effect. For example, the acid rain will cause the lake and streams to be acidic. Thus, it will also affect the ecosystem inside the water.

Acid rain can hurt the plants in the forest environment because when the plant start drinking the acid rain it makes the plants natural defense weaker. In doing that they are easier to die by diseases because they do not have much natural defense to protect them. It can also cause fires to the environment. Acid rain is known to take the nutrients out of soil killing trees, plants, and crops. With the low nutrients it does damage to the red spruce tree

Acid rain has a large concentration of hydrogen ions mainly coming from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. It could kill living organisms, damage buildings, and monuments.

To conclude, acid rain includes many elements that make it well known worldwide today and also puts my mind into a new perspective of the effects that are happening in front of my own eyes that I am not noticing. Not to mention, that if I were to pursue the career of becoming an environmental engineer, I would be able to help protect the environment from acidity and become more aware of the solutions to this problem when the environment cannot neutralize the substances on its

Acid Rain and acid deposition are pollutants that are very difficult to escape. It can reach every part of the US and many parts of the world. According to the EPA, Acid Rain is a term that tends to be broad. It’s when precipitation contains Acidic particles such as Sulfuric, or Nitric acid. These acidic particles can get carried all over by different means such as rain, wind, and even fog. Once it hits the ground it is then washed away into water systems. Acid Rain is something that many organizations are trying to have some control over due to the health issues it can cause in people and wildlife.

Acid rain lead to numerous upsetting consequences on the natural environment. Once it combines with the water in surface, it will acidify streams and lakes, eradicating fish and some other marine life. It soaks into waters in ground, initiating the heavy metals to seep out of

Acid rain has affected the economical problem on work of arts. According to James H. Gibson of Colorado State Univerity in Ft. Collins, acid rain has caused one of the most expensive and well-known economic problems in the world. “According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, they have estimated an annual cost of $5 billon dollars and increasing due to fixing of stuctures damaged by acid deposition” (Petersopn, 1985, p.154). Acid rain has been around in the world for many of years, how can we solve the issue of acid rain in our environment and help the companies from spending so much money on preventing acid rain from destroying their artwork?

Acid rain is a huge problem to the world. Acid rain is defined as “precipitation, as rain, snow, or sleet, containing relatively high concentrations of acid-forming chemicals, as the pollutants from coal smoke, chemical manufacturing, and smelting, that have been released into the atmosphere and combined with water vapor: harmful to the environment”(Dictionary.com). Acid rain has huge effects on trees and plants, waterways, and soil (epa.gov). Acid rain is an unnatural environmental problem that if not stopped, will continue too damage the world we live in.

The environmental challenge facing society that I have chosen to discuss is Acid Rain. The effects of acid rain were first noticed 150 years ago in Britain, and to this day are still an issue. The pH scale allows us to decide whether a substance is acidic or basic. If the substance has a pH of 7, it is neutral, below seven it is acidic, or above seven it is basic. Precipitation normally has a pH of 5.6, slightly acidic due to the CO2 in the atmosphere mixing with the rainwater to create a weak carbonic acid. Human induced pollution also plays a role in acid rain by releasing harmful gases such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. This is mostly done by the burning of fossil fuels and in industrial processes such as metal production (Middleton,2008). In agriculture, ammonia from nitrogenous fertilisers and manures escapes to the atmosphere by volatilisation (Tennesen, 2010).

Acid rain as a worldwide threat began when Swedish researcher Dr. Svante Oden theorized in the 1960s that pollution blowing from other countries was the cause of Sweden’s increasingly acidic waters. He then published his findings in the local newspaper and then popular scientific journals. He demonstrated for the first time ever, that rain and surface water throughout Europe were becoming more acidic and the winds were scattering sulfur and nitrogen based pollutants across the continent. His findings also showed how acid rain was causing the decline in fish, forest growth and disintegration of materials.

The formation of acid rain occurs when particular gasses are dissolved into rainwater which in turn creates acids. When precipitation is caught up in clouds, potent gasses are capable of polluting the rainwater causing it to become extremely acidic. One of the most common acids that is absorbed into the rain is sulfur trioxide. This acid is produced from the vast amount of human activity on our earth. Nitrogen and sulfur are two main airborne elements that cause this dangerous precipitation of acids. The scientific study of acid rain has brought researchers to believe that sixty-five to seventy percent of acid rain formation is caused by sulfur dioxide. Various kinds of nitrogen oxides cause the remaining percentage of acid rain occurrences. With the amount of emissions released into the ozone, acid rain is becoming more and more of a problem for our environment. When these pollutions react with rain, they form a dangerous product that can damage forests and soil. This in turn makes the soil infertile, ruining our land. Power plants and other large industries are releasing a harmful amount of SO2 in the atmosphere. These excess oxides that are interacting with rain have to be cut down in order to start reducing the amount of acid rain fall annually. When this acidic solution falls on areas with sea life and vegetation, it is found to kill fish, larva, insects, plants, and many other organism. When these forms of life are exposed to this low of a PH, it

Acid rain forms in the atmosphere from chemicals created by the burning of fossil fuels. When coal and oil are burned they release sulfur dioxide (SO2) and two nitric oxides, nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) designated by the symbol NOX. These dangerous chemicals come from the smoke that pours from factory chimneys and exhaust from car tail pipes. Once released, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react with other chemicals in the air, water

     The commonly used terms “acid rain” and “acid precipitation” describe specific forms of a type of pollution described generally as “acid deposition.” Harmful gases that rise into the air mix with cloud moisture, sunlight, and oxidants. There they chemically combine into dilute sulfuric and nitric acids, which fall back to the earth.

Acid rain is a rain or any othеr form of prеcipitation that is unusually acidic, mеaning that it possesses еlеvatеd lеvеls of hydrogen ions (low pH). It can havе harmful еffеcts on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure (Glossary-DEFRA, 2011). Thе chеmicals in acid rain can causе paint to pееl, corrosion of stееl structures such as bridges, and еrosion of stonе statues. Acid rain is caused by еmissions of carbon dioxidе, sulphur dioxidе and nitrogen oxidеs which rеact with the watеr molecules in thе atmosphere to producе acids. These gases are rеlеasеd into thе atmosphere as a rеsult of both natural causes likе volcanoеs and lightning strikеs as wеll as human activitiеs. Governments have made еfforts since thе 1970s to reduce thе rеlеasе of sulphur dioxide and othеr acidic gasеs into the atmosphеrе with positive rеsults. This paper will highlight the various causes of acid rain, its adverse effects on the environment as well as human health and infrastructure and finally outline preventive steps that government and corporations have taken in response.

Acid rain is a type of acidic precipitation caused by chemical reactions between the water in the atmosphere and byproducts from the combustion of fossil fuels. Acid rain can be very detrimental to animal and plant life.