Jiwoo Kim
Mr. Youell
Science E.
19 March 2015
Causes and Effects of Acid Rain and Remedies to consequent problems
After watching a documentary about acid rain, I realized that acid rain is becoming a major problem. So I decided to type up a blog on the causes and effects of acid rain and solutions to the problems it causes. But first, what is acid rain?
According to conserve energy future, acid rain refers to a mixture of deposited material both wet and dry, coming from the atmosphere containing more than normal amounts of nitric and sulfuric acids. Normal rain water is slightly acidic with its pH ranging from 5.3~6. If the pH of rain water falls below this range, it is termed "acid rain".
Now, what are the causes of acid rain? Both natural and man-made sources contribute to the formation of acid rain.
Natural causes include eruption of volcanoes, rotting vegetation, and sea sprays release sulfur dioxide into the air. Fire, lightning, bacteria decomposition generates nitrogen oxide. These chemicals mix with water and oxygen to form acids which then precipitates back to the ground as acid rain.
However, acid rain is mainly caused by the combustion of fossil fuels which give off Nitrogen Oxides and Sulfur Dioxides. Then, these emitted gases react with water, oxygen, and other gases already present in the air to form Sulfuric Acid, Nitric Acid, and Ammonium Nitrate. These acids disperse because of wind patterns and fall back to the ground as acid rain.
This process is explained below in Figure 1.
So, what are the effects of acid rain? The effects can be very devastating.
The impact of acid rain is most evident in aquatic environment. Acidic precipitation either falls directly into aquatic bodies or gets run off forests, roads, and fields and flow into streams, rivers, and lakes. As the acidic liquid flows into larger bodies of water, they are diluted but over time, it can greatly affect the overall pH of the water body. These conditions can become very harsh and too extreme for aquatic animals and plants that need a particular pH to survive .
Acid rain also make trees more vulnerable to extreme weather, disease, and insects by corroding and damaging their leaves and bark, and stunting their growth. The devastating effects of acid rain on forests is shown in figure 2 below.
As acid rain falls on soil, it kills micro-organisms and leaches the nutrients of the soil oftentimes leading to calcium and other nutrients deficiency, producing infertile soils.
Acid rain corrode away buildings especially those made of limestone. Even modern buildings, cars, steel bridges, and pipes are all affected by acid rain. Irreparable damage can be caused to old heritage buildings.
When in atmosphere sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide degrade visibility, and cause accidents, injuries, and death.
Now that you've realized the severity of this problem, you might be wondering what we can do to help solve this problem. Fortunately, there are a several things you can do to help ranging from individual actions, to changing society and spreading the idea.
Individually, you can use alternative energy sources besides fossil fuels that release less or none pollutants that mix with substances in the air to produce acids. Examples of these alternative energy sources include as nuclear power, hydropower, wind energy, geothermal energy, and solar energy.
Also, you can add limestone or lime (naturally occuring basic compound) to acidified water to "cancel out" the acidity of the water.
Furthermore, you can of course help by saving electricity by turning off lights when not using them, releasing less pollutants by using public transportation, etc...
But above all, I believe that it is most important to bring about societal to help restore the damage done to our environment by acid rain in a greater scale.
Bibliography
http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/reducing/index.html
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-and-effects-of-acid-rain.php
http://geography.about.com/od/globalproblemsandissues/a/acidrain.htm
https://thewaterwatch.wordpress.com/tag/effect-of-acid-rain/
Natural causes include eruption of volcanoes, rotting vegetation, and sea sprays release sulfur dioxide into the air. Fire, lightning, bacteria decomposition generates nitrogen oxide. These chemicals mix with water and oxygen to form acids which then precipitates back to the ground as acid rain.
However, acid rain is mainly caused by the combustion of fossil fuels which give off Nitrogen Oxides and Sulfur Dioxides. Then, these emitted gases react with water, oxygen, and other gases already present in the air to form Sulfuric Acid, Nitric Acid, and Ammonium Nitrate. These acids disperse because of wind patterns and fall back to the ground as acid rain.
This process is explained below in Figure 1.
 |
| Figure 1 Image showing how rain gets mixed with acids to become acid rain and precipitate |
So, what are the effects of acid rain? The effects can be very devastating.
The impact of acid rain is most evident in aquatic environment. Acidic precipitation either falls directly into aquatic bodies or gets run off forests, roads, and fields and flow into streams, rivers, and lakes. As the acidic liquid flows into larger bodies of water, they are diluted but over time, it can greatly affect the overall pH of the water body. These conditions can become very harsh and too extreme for aquatic animals and plants that need a particular pH to survive .
Acid rain also make trees more vulnerable to extreme weather, disease, and insects by corroding and damaging their leaves and bark, and stunting their growth. The devastating effects of acid rain on forests is shown in figure 2 below.
 |
| Figure 2 Destructive effects of acid rain to forests in czech republic |
Acid rain corrode away buildings especially those made of limestone. Even modern buildings, cars, steel bridges, and pipes are all affected by acid rain. Irreparable damage can be caused to old heritage buildings.
When in atmosphere sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide degrade visibility, and cause accidents, injuries, and death.
Now that you've realized the severity of this problem, you might be wondering what we can do to help solve this problem. Fortunately, there are a several things you can do to help ranging from individual actions, to changing society and spreading the idea.
Individually, you can use alternative energy sources besides fossil fuels that release less or none pollutants that mix with substances in the air to produce acids. Examples of these alternative energy sources include as nuclear power, hydropower, wind energy, geothermal energy, and solar energy.
Also, you can add limestone or lime (naturally occuring basic compound) to acidified water to "cancel out" the acidity of the water.
Furthermore, you can of course help by saving electricity by turning off lights when not using them, releasing less pollutants by using public transportation, etc...
But above all, I believe that it is most important to bring about societal to help restore the damage done to our environment by acid rain in a greater scale.
Bibliography
http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/reducing/index.html
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-and-effects-of-acid-rain.php
http://geography.about.com/od/globalproblemsandissues/a/acidrain.htm
https://thewaterwatch.wordpress.com/tag/effect-of-acid-rain/
WWW- Very informative, all desired parts (causes effects remedies) where included and formatting was good. Pictures also added to the overall presentation.
ReplyDeleteEBI- Make sure paragraphs are always intended and sources could be listed in MLA format (if desired)
WWW- The information is really good and I liked how your writing was more for our age, with questions asked. Causes, effects and remedies were explained very well and of course the format was great.
ReplyDeleteEBI- Make sure that your bibliography is hyper linked and also maybe a better organization of the paragraphs. Good job!
Blog is good overall, very organized and clear. Here are the specific things of What Went Well (WWW) and Even Better If (EBI):
ReplyDeleteWWW: Questions are asked and answered in a clear manner, in order ; Formatting of pictures is good, as we can clearly see what text is with the picture thanks to the highlighting ;
EBI: More hyperlinks, there is just one at the beginning ; too much spacing between the columns (Sorry, not a major problem, but it bothers me slightly) ; it would be better if it had more pictures, and not that the two are not good, they show us everything we need to know, but you could of added a picture of a sea with dead fish floating because of acid rain.