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= Acid Rain (Radwan Obeidat): =

What is Acid Rain?:
Acid rain is a result of air pollution. When any type of fuel is burnt, lots of different chemicals are produced. The smoke that comes from a fire or the fumes that come out of a car exhaust don't just contain the sooty grey particles that you can see - they also contain lots of invisible gases that can be even more harmful to our environment. Power stations, factories, and cars all burn fuels and therefore they all produce polluting gases. Some of these gases (especially nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide) react with the tiny droplets of water in clouds to form sulfuric and nitric acids. The rain from these clouds then falls as very weak acid - which is why it is known as "acid rain".

How acidic is Acid Rain?
Normal clean rain has a pH value of between 5.0 and 5.5, which is slightly acidic. However, when rain combines with sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides—produced from power plants and automobiles—the rain becomes much more acidic. Typical acid rain has a pH value of 4.0.

The Effects of Acid Rain
Acid rain can be carried great distances in the atmosphere, not just between countries but also from continent to continent. The acid can also take the form of snow, mists and dry dust. The rain sometimes falls many miles from the source of pollution but wherever it falls it can have a serious effect on soil, trees, buildings, and water. Forests all over the world are dying, fish are dying. In Scandinavia, there are dead lakes, which are crystal clear and contain no living creatures or plant life. Many of Britain's freshwater fish are threatened, there have been reports of deformed fish being hatched. This leads to fish-eating birds and animals being affected also. Is acid rain responsible for all this? Scientists have been doing a lot of research on how acid rain affects the environment.

on:Wet Deposition
Wet deposition is what we most commonly think of as acid rain. The sulfuric and nitric acids formed in the atmosphere fall to the ground mixed with rain, snow, fog, or hail.

Dry Deposition
Acidic particles and gases can also deposit from the atmosphere in the absence of moisture as dry deposition. The acidic particles and gases may deposit to surfaces (water bodies, vegetation, buildings) quickly or may react during atmospheric transport to form larger particles that can be harmful to human health. When the accumulated acids are washed off a surface by the next rain, this acidic water flows over and through the ground, and can harm plants and wildlife, such as insects and fish. The amount of acidity in the atmosphere that deposits to earth through dry deposition depends on the amount of rainfall an area receives. For example, in desert areas, the ratio of dry to wet deposition is higher than an area that receives several inches of rain each year.

Citation: Obeidat, Radwan "Acid Rain" radwebsites 1/1/2019, Website link 

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