Acid Rain

It's Bringing Down Our Ecosystems "Acid rain is a term used to describe the acidity of wet and dry deposition" (Middleton 50). Deposition is just the process of depositing. According to Middleton, who wrote the Atlas of Environmental Issues, the different types of wet deposition are snow, sleet, hail, fog, mist and dew. This is also known as acid precipitation. Ash, soot, and gases are types of dry deposition. Many environmental effects have been attributed to acid rain. Such effects are damage to lakes, streams, groundwater, forests, agriculture, statues, buildings and human health. Acid rain has become an important issue around the world because once pollution is out in the air, it can cast out and received over long ranges. This means that acid rain from one country can cause harm to another country (50). Patel, who wrote the article "Acid Rain," suggests that acid rain is rain that has a low pH.

English: Effects of acid rain, woods, Jizera Mount...

Acid rain results on monuments

English: From the EPA website on acid rain http://...

Normally, rain is acidic because of the carbon dioxide that animals exhale. Rain becomes acidic from gases that disintegrate into the rain water. These gases out in the atmosphere give rain a pH of or around 5.0. "Before the Industrial Revolution the pH of rain was generally between 5 and 6, so the term acid rain is now used to describe rain with a pH below 5." In areas where there are volcanoes, rain can be as low as 4.0 due to sulfuric acid ("Acid Rain" What is Acid Rain? par 1). Middleton states that acid rain affects cities. It can damage vegetation, can speed up the disintegration of building stone, and can cause damage to a person's health. The Internet article "Acid Rain and Deposition" by Gow and Pidwimy reports that "emissions of sulfur dioxide are responsible for 60-70 % of the acid deposition that occurs...