Acid Rain :: Free Essay Writer

Acid rainwaterAcid rain forms when sulfur and newton dioxides combine with moisturein the atmosphere to produce rain, snow, or an another(prenominal) kind of precipitation. Thiskind of pollution may to a fault be suspended in fog or deposited in a dry form. Acidrain is most common in North America and Europe. Acid rain has also beendetected in other areas of the world such as tropical rain forests of Africa.Canada has placed limitations on the sulfur emissions. The United States hasnot, so the emissions may pipe down drift into Canada.The acid rain cycle begins with hundreds of power plants burningmillions of tons of coal. Burning coal produces electricity for us. Coal ismade of carbon, but the coal that we mine is not pure carbon. It is mixed withother minerals. Two of these are sulfur and due north. Then the coal is burnedsome of the sulfur changes into sulfur dioxide and nitrogen changes intonitrogen oxide. These escape in to the air as poisonous gases. Some smokestacksrelea se chemicals like mercury, arsenic, and aluminum. Some of these mineralsare changed in to gases and others become tiny specks of ash. As thesechemicals drift, they may change again. They may react with other chemicals inthe air. When sulfur dioxide combines with water, the result is sulfuric acid.When nitrogen oxide gas combines with water, the result is also another acid.When the clouds releases rain or other precipitation, the acid goes with it.This is called acid rain.The level of acid is measured in pH levels. The pH scale begins at 0and ends with 14. A reading start out than 7 is called acrid, and a reading higherthan 7 is called basic. Seven is neutral. Normal rain is slightly acidic with apH level of about 6.5. Rain with a pH of 5.5 is then times more acidic thannormal rain and rain with pH of 4.5 is a hundred times more acidic than normalrain. In parts of the country, rain with pH levels of 4.5 to 5.0 is common.An English scientist named Robert Angus Smith discovered acid rain in1872, but no other scientist continued this study. Then in 1961 the Swedenwanted to know why the fish in their lakes were dying. Svante Odn discoveredthat the reason was acid rain. After Odns discovery, other scientist began tostudy acid rain too.Acid rain has destroyed plant and animal life in lakes, damaged forests