Cause and Consequences of Acid Rain

Tamara Ilic
Mr. Patrick Youell
9B Science
4/10/2016
                                                      Causes and Consequences of Acid Rain

        This blog post has purpose to educate the reader about the causes, effects, consequences and remedies of acid rain. You should already be aware that acid rain is one of the major problems for organisms and society on planet Earth, the effects of acid rain are very harmful for plants, aquatic animals and infrastructure. As you already know acid rain can be found in two forms of precipitations ,rainfall or snow. It is produced from great amount of acidic substances (carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide) mixed together.

Causes
Acid rain is considered both natural phenomena and/or type of air pollution caused by human activites. In cases in which acid rain is considered a natural phenomena is when the chemical reaction is caused by nature. Undoubtedly, one of the most frequent natural cause of acid rain are volcanic eruptions. During volcanic emissions massive amounts of sulfur dioxide are released into the atmosphere where they combines with other acids like carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to form acid rain. Even though living organisms release carbon dioxide when they breathe, CO₂ is considered to be a pollutant when it merges with burned fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. Human activities which involve burning of fossil fuels are the major cause of acid rain. Main sources of burning fossil fuels are power stations which release enormous amount of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide is the essential chemical compound in creation of acid rain, it is a toxic gas with a chocking, irritating smell. When sulfur dioxide mixes with other gases in the atmosphere and dissolves in water droplets in the clouds it gives the rain more acidic properties which leads to creation of acid rain. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1: The process of Forming Acid Rain

Effects
According to National Geographic (Article 1) acid rain has many ecological effects, however none of them is as substantial as the impact of acid rain on aquatic life. Once acid rain mixes with water in lakes, rivers and seas it turns the water acidic and causes the water to absorb aluminum from the soil, this mixture creates toxins deadly for aquatic animals. Even though some species can consume acidic water better than others as the National Geographic (Article 2) states "what impacts some species eventually impacts many more through the food chain". This means that if our food was once exposed to consequences of acid rain we might also get effected.(See Figure 2)

Figure 2: Aquatic life effected by acid rain

Besides aquatic life, acid rain damages wax layer of tree leaves and takes of the soil of essential nutrients which makes it more inconvenient for trees to absorb the water. If trees don't take as much water as expected they are being exposed to lack of growth and healthy state. In Figure 3 you can see the effect that acid rain has on trees.

Figure 3: Trees after effected by acid rain

Interesting fact:
According to BBC Bitesize Lichens (See Figure 4) are used as natural indicator of pollution caused by sulfur dioxide. They grow in places in which it is easy to absorb aluminum-free water and nutrients, which suggests that there is no pollution in the near area, since sulfur dioxide is capable of damaging the lichens and preventing them to growing. Rain water in these fields contains just enough nutrients to sustain Lichens, therefore makes them natural indicator of sulfur dioxide pollution.

Figure 4: Lichens

Remedies
Since we are unable to prevent natural pollutants such as volcanoes,  we should try reduce all the harmful acts that we are doing that are contributing to the formation of acid rain. One of the major harmful human activities is burning coal fuels. Governments should spend more resources on discovering new sources of energy, and more money on pollution control. Simple citizens of countries should try and drive cars as less as possible, they could use public transportation, ride bikes, or simply go by foot. In order for us to prevent acid rain we all need to make an effort and help animals, plants, infrastructures, and our selves from suffering.
       This is a very pressing issue for the whole world. Even though this might not be on all headlines of newspapers, it is destroying nature, killing aquatic animals, and effecting almost all living organisms on our planet.
Hyperlinks:

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution-overview/

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/acid-rain-overview/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/znsk7ty/revision/1