Audience: Middle and High School Students
Photo of rain by Max from Unsplash
It’s a chilly day in January, with clouds hovering above the lush hills. It starts to drizzle lightly, and you feel gentle droplets of water falling on your clothes. Tilting your head up, you stick your tongue out to taste the fresh water as it falls, drop by drop. Though it seems like normal rain, unbeknownst to you, the rain is acidic. While you don’t see immediate effects, if you are consistently present in acid rain, the consequences can be detrimental, not only to the environment but to humans as well.
The main cause of acid rain is the burning of coal and other fossil fuels. The gaseous waste that results consists of nitrogen and sulfur oxides, which form acids by combining with atmospheric water. Clean rain has a pH of around 5.0 to 5.5, which is slightly acidic, but not a harmful amount. Acid rain, on the other hand, has a pH between 4.2 to 4.4. The pH system works on a logarithmic scale, so a pH of 4 is actually 10 times more acidic than a pH of 5.
The pathway of acid rain is as follows:
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere. By the wind and air currents, they get transported and react with water, oxygen, and more chemicals. As a result, sulfuric and nitric acids form. These acids mix with water before falling to the ground as rainfall — acid rainfall, to be precise.
Pathway of acid rain from freep!k
This acid rain that falls has damaging effects on the environment. Nutrients for plants are washed away. Water becomes polluted. Corrosion occurs. All of these issues result from the presence of continuous acid rain, affecting both living and nonliving things.
Nutrients required for plant growth are washed away and agriculture suffers. When acid rain seeps into the ground, nutrients that trees need such as magnesium and calcium are dissolved. Forests are largely impacted by acid rain because of this. Water animals are largely affected as the acidic water mixes in with their regular water environment. The chemical composition of the water is changed and water pollution results. Items made up of stones and metals such as monuments are often damaged; corrosion is a large effect of acid rain.
As sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide interact in the atmosphere to form particles of sulfate and nitrate, humans can inhale these particles into their lungs. This is why acid rain can contribute to respiratory diseases, also known as lung diseases. Studies have found that simply the increased presence of these particles have contributed to an increase in illness and premature death from heart and lung disorders. Two of such examples are asthma and chronic bronchitis, which are conditions in which breathing can become difficult.
Though preventing acid rain entirely may be next to impossible, there are a few ways we can reduce its presence. As the burning of fossil fuels increases with an increase in the number of industries, nitrogen and sulfur oxides have become more prominent. Reducing the usage of fossil fuels and converting to more eco-friendly methods is a perfect way to reduce the presence of nitrogen and sulfur oxides. Renewable resources such as solar and wind power are more recently developed uses of energy, and the future looks promising as more industries have started to switch to these methods.
Bibliography:
Acid rain and water completed. Acid Rain and Water | U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/acid-rain-and-water#:~:text=Acid%20rain%20leaches%20aluminum%20from,that%20trees%20need%20to%20grow.
Banton, C. (n.d.). Renewable resource: Definition, considerations, and types. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/renewable_resource.asp#:~:text=Renewable%20resources%20are%20those%20resources,water%2C%20geothermal%2C%20and%20biomass.
Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.-a). EPA. https://www3.epa.gov/acidrain/education/site_students/phscale.html#:~:text=Normal%2C%20clean%20rain%20has%20a,a%20pH%20value%20of%204.0.
Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.-b). EPA. https://www3.epa.gov/acidrain/education/site_students/whyharmful.html#:~:text=Acid%20rain%20can%20be%20extremely,trees%20to%20take%20up%20water.
Free vector: Diagram showing acid rain pathway. Freepik. (2021a, January 27). https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/diagram-showing-acid-rain-pathway_12364695.htm
WebMD. (n.d.). Acid rain: What to know. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/lung/copd/what-to-know-about-acid-rain-health-effects#:~:text=The%20main%20health%20effects%20of,heart%20attacks%20and%20even%20death.
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