Does acid rain still occur?

Question

There used to be lots of scary stories about it years ago, but I haven't heard about it for ages.

Answer 1

Yes, acid rain still does occur. The reason you no longer hear much about it is that it is no longer a new situation. (News by definition is that which is new.) The other reason you no longer hear much about it is that so many people got such a wrong idea about what "acid rain" was. Many people were envisioning something like battery acid pouring out of the sky and burning and scarring everything in its wake. Acid rain is the situation where the water falling from the sky has a Ph value in the acidic range rather than neutral or slightly alkaline. Plants have evolved not to deal with mildly acidic rain, and over the long run, ecological damage will result.
We still need to fix many man-made problems, but the media usually "over-hypes" the problem, portraying it as an imminent catastrophe rather than a gradual but increasing problem. Most ecological disasters are like soil erosion, slow and steady build up of a problem, rather than a raging flood that carries hundreds of tons of topsoil away from an agricultural area.
The problem is that such a to-do is made of each problem that the public gets bored and loses interest when it realizes that the problems are gradual, percentage point per point. That is not "sexy" or "newsworthy" once the original discovery of another way we are ruining the planet is made.
Slow and steady damage does not seem to interest people, but let me give you an example. I have been driving for 43 years. When I was first driving, gasoline was nineteen cents a gallon. Now the price is over three dollars. People were saying 43 years ago that there was a limited supply of fossil fuels, but shortages would only occur in "the future".
Guess what, yesterday's future is today's now. Ignore the "scary stories" at your peril, the stories will go away but the problem will not. Sooner or later we will have succeeded in desolating our planet.

Answer 2

The story about "acid rain" is that it is not a simple on or off phenomenon. Rain water is almost always somewhat more acid than distilled water because it falls through the atmosphere, where there is carbon dioxide gas, some of which dissolves in the water, lowering its pH below neutral. The "acid rain" environmental problem is that, if the air contains sulfur oxides, these too dissolve in the rainwater, but they lower the pH a lot, enough for the acidity to damage the leaves of plants when the raindrops land on them. Sulfur oxides were entering the air from the burning of high sulfur coal in western US power plants, and the rain acidity was killing forests in the eastern US and Canada. Environmental policies are now in place in the US to remove much of the sulfur from the coal before it is burned, so the acidity of rainwater downwind from coal power plants is less of a problem than it used to be in North America. The problem has not gone away, but it has been mitigated. Eastern coniferous forests that were being killed by "acid rain" are now recovering, and it is hoped that if the present trend continues, the forests will eventually return to a near normal condition. The end of the "crisis" means the end of the news coverage - news is almost always about a crisis! By the way, there are other places in the world where burning high sulfur coal is causing acid air pollution downwind with various adverse effects on plants, animals, and even people. The US media do not seem to be interested in acid rain in China.

Answer 3

Acid rain is a naturally occuring process.
There is the "man made" Acid rain and naturally occuring acid rain.
Man made is the result of emmissions from cars factories ect.
Naturally occuring acid rain however occurs when carbon dioxide(that occurs naturally in the atmosphere) in the atmosphere combines with water to form a weak carbonic acid.
Also sulphur thrown up by volcanic activity can also form acid rain.
The effect of industrial acid rain is a serious issue.
Industrial gasses from the ruhr vally(a hevy industrial area in germany) was responsible for the destruction of trees in sweeden. It is not a local issue it is a global issue.
Enviromental issues never go away.
Good question i havent heard much about acid rain, recently either.

Answer 4

Acid rain does till occur but the term has been somewhat abused over time. It sounds like something that should be coming from a horror movie. When Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides are released in the air they are absorbed by the drop of water in the clouds. Then it falls to the ground as rain, snow, hail, mist and/or sleet.

It isn't a good thing, it effects soil and the chemical balance of lakes and rivers, but its not the flesh burning myth people talk about. Certain areas in the world (like China) have higher levels of acid rain due to its over Industrialization of the land.

Answer 5

We all agree that Acid Rain exists and is a serious problem...however the scientific community and politicians worldwide choose to down play its serious effects due to other pressing issues like Ozone depletion. However, the Ozone has expanded and contracted from millions of years, we just cant prove it, yet. Well, unless we look at Global Warming, which is in direct relation. That is another topic!!!

Acid rain, whether from man made or natural causes is still out there, and is very damaging. Other comments have directed you to links so I will not repeat the same info!

Answer 6

Acid rain is the rain water with acid content in it.From the poisonous gases like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide that are given out by the factories and industries will mix with the water vapour content in the atmosphere and it will form clouds.Then it will cool and fall down as water with acidic nature.This is the process of acid rain.If it fall in water bodies the body of the fish in them will disintegrate and thus fish population gets reduced.If ti fall on our body,our skin will be affected by the acidic nature.It could also harm buildings.

Answer 7

Yes, it does still occur...all rain has acid in it...its ph level is just not as high therefore, it wont endanger any of us...but with all the carbon monoxide and dioxide in our atmosphere it is possible for acid rain to become very acidy and endager people and animals along with plants and such.

Answer 8

Acid rains still occur.Take a trip to places like Warri in Nigeria where there are refinary operations and Ewekoro cement factory in Nigeria in Africa if you are the out going type.You will observe corroded zinc roof tops as a result of acid rains.

Answer 9

The Earth cleanses it's self or it's atmosphere once every eight hours on average by rainfall.
Man has found the problems of acid rain and will do the correct thing to halt as much of it from happening as possible. I have faith that this will be taken care of.

Answer 10

Yes. You can see the evidence on tree leaves and tombstones. Acid rain is causing a decline in the amphibian population because many of them use rain water puddle to mate and lay their eggs in. The acid in the water is dissolving those eggs.