What is Acid Rain and where does it come from?

Answer 1

Acid rain is caused by a chemical reaction between water an whatever is in the atmosphere which causes acid to be created. The acid will usually be a compound of Hydrogen.

Sulphuric acid, Nitric acid, will be pretty common in very dilute amounts in rain.

It comes from the sky, in the same way that rain does. The reaction with water is caused by sulphates or nitrates in the atmosphere reacting with moisture in clouds before (or during) the rainfall.

Answer 2

Acid rain (or more accurately acid precipitation)[1] occurs when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere, undergo chemical transformations and are absorbed by water droplets in clouds. The droplets then fall to earth as rain, snow, or sleet. This can increase the acidity of the soil, and affect the chemical balance of lakes and streams.[2] The term "acid rain" is sometimes used more generally to include all forms of acid deposition - both wet deposition, where acidic gases and particles are removed by rain or other precipitation, and dry deposition removal of gases and particles to the Earth's surface in the absence of precipitation.[3]

Acid rain is defined as any type of precipitation with a pH that is unusually low.[4] Dissolved carbon dioxide dissociates to form weak carbonic acid giving a pH of approximately 5.6 at typical atmospheric concentrations of CO2.[5] Therefore a pH of <5.6 has sometimes been used as a definition of acid rain.[6] However, natural sources of acidity mean that in remote areas, rain has a pH which is between 4.5 and 5.6 with an average value of 5.0 and so rain with a pH <5 is a more appropriate definition.

Answer 3

Acid rain is the result of an extremely polluted cloud. Factories (or cars or whatever is polluting) put pollution into the air in an aerosol form, which is then bonded with water molecules. These molecules just do their normal thing, condensing when they reach a high enough level in the atmosphere, and then rain the pollution down--acid rain.

Answer 4

Polltant gases such as sulphur dioxide mix with the water in the clouds so that when it rains you get relatively low concentrations of acid mixed in with the rain. It can have bad effects on forests and plants, as well as limestone sructures/natural rock formations. This over a long period of time though, it wont exactly melt your skin off if u get caught in out in some acidic rain.

Answer 5

Acid rain is just that: acids form in the atmosphere and come falling down to earth with rain.

They are formed when substances like CO, CO2, etc. meet up with water and form carbonic acid, phosphoric acid, or other weak acids.

Answer 6

Acid rain sounds worse than it is (In most cases) and is from pollutants usually from foreign cities.
Sometimes rain contains sand, this sand comes from the desert many 100s of miles away

Answer 7

as a result of industrial waste the pollutants like sulphurdioxide are emitted in air then when rain comes the water reacts with sulphurdioxide and forms acids like sulphuric acid
this is an acid rain

Answer 8

ACID rain; it comes from polluted water and vapors like from nuclear type of plants