What Is Acid Rain: Tips For Safeguarding Plants From Acid Rain Damage

Acid rain has been an environmental buzzword since the 1980s, even though it started falling from the sky and eating through lawn furniture and ornaments as early as the 1950s. Although common acid rain isn’t acidic enough to burn skin, the effects of acid rain on plant growth can be dramatic. If you live in an acid rain-prone area, read on to learn about safeguarding plants from acid rain. What is Acid Rain? Acid rain forms when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide react with chemicals like water, oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to form sulfuric acid and nitric acid. Water containing these acidic compounds falls back to the earth as rain, harming plants and other immobile objects below. Although the acid from acid rain is weak, normally no more acidic than vinegar, it can seriously alter the environment, damaging plants and aquatic ecosystems.

 Does Acid Rain Kill Plants?

This is a straightforward question with a not very straighten forward answer. Acid rain and plant damage go hand in hand in areas prone to this type of pollution, but the changes to a plant’s environment and tissues are gradual. Eventually, a plant exposed to acid rain will die, but unless your plants are incredibly sensitive, the acid rain unusually potent and frequent or you’re a very bad gardener, the damage is not fatal. The way that acid rain damages plants is very subtle. Over time, the acidic water alters the pH of the soil where your plants are growing, binding and dissolving vital minerals and carrying them away. As the soil pH falls, your plants will suffer increasingly obvious symptoms, including yellowing between the veins on their leaves. Rain that falls on leaves can eat away the outer waxy layer of tissue that protects the plant from drying out, leading to the destruction of the chloroplasts that drive photosynthesis. When a lot of leaves are damaged at once, your plant may become very stressed and attract a host of pests and diseases organisms.

Safeguarding Plants from Acid Rain 

The best way to protect plants from acid rain is to prevent rain from falling on them, but with larger trees and shrubs this may be impossible. In fact, many experts recommend planting more tender specimens under large trees to protect them from damage. Where trees aren’t available, moving these delicate plants to gazebos or covered porches will do. When all else fails, some thick plastic draped over stakes surrounding the plant can hold off acid damage, provided that you place and remove the covers promptly. The soil is another matter entirely. If you live in an area where acid rain is common, soil testing every six to 12 months is a good idea. Frequent soil tests will alert you to problems in the soil so you can add extra minerals, nutrients or lime when necessary. Staying one step ahead of acid rain is vital to keeping your plants healthy and happy. 

Chemtrails Or Acid Rain ?

Chemtrails or Acid Rain ? - The Birth Of Two Myths

The idea that acid rain is some sort of hoax or scam is ludicrous. Sulfuric acid and its environmental effects have been known since ancient historical times. If acid rain is a hoax, then the ancient Sumerians and Greeks were certainly in on it. Modern science has been accumulating facts about environmental damage caused by sulfuric acid since at least 1736, when sulfuric acid was first produced industrially in Britain. When deniers of anthropogenic global warming claim that acid rain is a hoax they demonstrate, not their knowledge of science, but their political preferences, as here for example.

The chemtrail nonsense is an idea put forward by people who would rather believe a conspiracy theory than the physical laws of the universe.  Apparently, some mysterious "they" are putting chemicals in aircraft fuel for nefarious purposes.  The less extreme theories suggest that "they" are using HAARP to turn the atmosphere into a plasma, and as proof just look at the pretty colors in the clouds. Perhaps these people live in the perpetual haze of cities and have thus never seen rainbows in clouds.

If a plane is 'pumping out chemicals', other than the normal by-products of clean combustion, then maybe one or more engines need attention.  What is more likely, however is that "they" are testing new fuels and new engines.  If "they" want to dose the world at large with mind-altering substances they can sell it on street-corners for profit, rather than bribe tens of thousands of people to look the other way while the proverbial man in black puts something in a fuel tank.

A brief history of the science and politics of acid rain.

There are some people who want you to think that acid rain is a hoax.  In their eagerness to "prove" their "theory" ( aka something they just made up ) they generally start talking about how the hoax began in the 1970s or late 1960s.  Certainly the term acid rain came into wide use in the 1970s, but the fact of acid rain was known much earlier.  When coal is burned, one of the many byproducts of combustion is sulfur dioxide.  This combines with atmospheric moisture to form sulfurous acid.  That acid, if it combines with water, turns into sulfuric acid.  That's the same acid - but much more dilute - which you get in the lead-acid battery.

As an aside I might mention that one of many methods for determining the environmental effects of airborne acid employed a measuring device which utilized the same reaction that damages lead-acid batteries: sulfation.  The degree of sulfation of a lead(IV)oxide surface exposed to air for a month is a measure of the corrosive effects of that air.  That proxy method was used in the 1930s to measure the effects of coal smoke in Britain.

How can sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid affect my health?

To protect the public from the harmful effects of toxic chemicals and to find ways to treat people who have been harmed, scientists use many tests.

One way to see if a chemical will hurt people is to learn how the chemical is absorbed, used, and released by the body; for some chemicals, animal testing may be necessary. Animal testing may also be used to identify health effects such as cancer or birth defects. Without laboratory animals, scientists would lose a basic method to get information needed to make wise decisions to protect public health. Scientists have the responsibility to treat research animals with care and compassion. Laws today protect the welfare of research animals, and scientists must comply with strict animal care guidelines.

Sulfuric acid and other acids are very corrosive and irritating and cause direct local effects on the skin, eyes, and respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts when there is direct exposure to sufficient concentrations. Breathing sulfuric acid mists can result in tooth erosion and respiratory tract irritation. Drinking concentrated sulfuric acid can burn your mouth and throat, and it can erode a hole in your stomach; it has also resulted in death. If you touch sulfuric acid, it will burn your skin. If you get sulfuric acid in your eyes, it will burn your eyes and cause them to water. The term "burn" used in these sections refers to a chemical burn, not a physical burn resulting from contacting a hot object. People have been blinded by sulfuric acid when it was thrown in their faces.

Breathing small droplets of sulfuric acid at levels that might be in the air on a day with high air pollution may make it more difficult to breathe. This effect is more likely to occur if you have been exercising or if you have asthma. This effect may also be more likely to occur in children than adults. Breathing sulfuric acid droplets may affect the ability of your respiratory tract to remove other small particles that you have inhaled. If you breathe sulfur trioxide, it turns into sulfuric acid in your upper respiratory tract, and the effects you may experience will be similar to those of sulfuric acid inhalation.

Studies in people who breathed high concentrations of sulfuric acid at work have shown an increase in cancers of the larynx. However, most of the cancers were in smokers who were also exposed to other acids and other chemicals. There is no information that exposure to sulfuric acid by itself is carcinogenic. The carcinogenicity of sulfuric acid has not been studied in animals. The EPA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) have not classified sulfur trioxide or sulfuric acid for carcinogenic effects. Based on very limited human data, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) believes that evidence is sufficient to state that occupational exposure to strong inorganic acid mists containing sulfuric acid is carcinogenic to humans. IARC has not classified pure sulfuric acid for its carcinogenic effects. 

How can sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid affect children?

This section discusses potential health effects from exposures during the period from conception to maturity at 18 years of age in humans. Potential effects on children resulting from exposures of the parents are also considered.

Children may be exposed to sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid in the same manner as adults, with the exception of chemical encounters in the workplace. Sulfur trioxide is only used in industry as an intermediate in the production of chemicals such as sulfuric acid and quickly converts to sulfuric acid when it contacts water in air. Therefore, children will most likely only be at risk of exposure from sulfuric acid, not sulfur trioxide. Exposure to sulfuric acid may occur through skin contact, eye contact, ingestion, and breathing contaminated air. Sulfuric acid can cause severe skin burns, it can burn the eyes, burn holes in the stomach if swallowed, irritate the nose and throat, and cause difficulties breathing if inhaled.

Exposure to sulfuric acid from accidental contact with or misuse of sulfuric acid-containing consumer products is the most likely way your child could be exposed. Household products that contain sulfuric acid include drain and toilet bowl cleaners, and some acid car batteries. The national estimate (derived by United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, USCPSC) for injuries related to drain cleaners over a 5-year period ending January 1996 is between 2,800 and 3,150 injuries per year. Inquisitive toddlers may get into unsealed or improperly stored containers of sulfuric acid-containing products. Transfer of cleaning agents containing sulfuric acid into containers not designed for their storage can allow leakage from the container. Improper flushing of areas recently cleaned with a sulfuric acid-containing product can lead to inadvertent skin exposure to both children and adults.

While younger children are most at risk from accidental swallowing, skin contact, or eye contact with sulfuric acid in household products, teenagers might have jobs in which they may contact sulfuric acid. If teenagers must use acid cleaners in their jobs or work in car repair where they may contact car batteries, they might be exposed. Furthermore, there have been reports of older children using sulfuric acid-containing solutions as weapons, thereby causing severe skin damage when intentionally splashed on others.

Small droplets of sulfuric acid may exist in the outdoor air. You and your children have the greatest chances of inhaling the compound during times of high air pollution with sulfuric acid. This may lead to difficulty breathing. If you live near electrical, metal processing, or paper processing industries, you may also have a greater chance of exposure to sulfuric acid. When sulfuric acid is inhaled into the lungs in the form of small droplets that exist in air, these droplets are deposited within the lung and the ability of your respiratory tract to remove other small, unwanted particles may be decreased. A study has shown that children can have greater deposition of sulfuric acid in their lungs than adults due to children's smaller airway diameters. Also, because children breathe more air per kilogram of body weight than adults, children may take in more sulfuric acid when they breathe the same contaminated air. Increased sensitivity has been witnessed in both animal studies with young guinea pigs and in human studies of asthmatic adolescents. This evidence suggests that children may be more vulnerable than adults to the health effects associated with breathing sulfuric acid.

No studies examining effects on unborn children following a mother's exposure to sulfuric acid during pregnancy were identified in humans. Limited evidence in animals indicates that sulfuric acid is not a hazard to unborn children. Birth defects have not been observed in animals that breathed high levels of sulfuric acid mist. Exposing pregnant rabbits to sulfuric acid did not significantly affect the body weights or cause malformations in their offspring. Again, because sulfuric acid causes adverse effects at its point of contact with the body, the acid, as such, is not expected to be absorbed or distributed throughout the body. Sulfuric acid is not expected to be transported across a mother's placenta into her developing baby or into breast milk. Therefore, an exposed mother most likely will not threaten her unborn or nursing child. Since sulfuric acid's effects occur at the point of contact, it is not likely that it will reach a mother's egg or father's sperm. Therefore, parents exposure to sulfuric acid or sulfur trioxide should not affect their unborn children. 

Food chains affected by acid rain

Acid Rain affects our lives much more than you think. Acid rain is rainfall made with acid from our atmospheric pollution. It is one of the after affects of having a polluted atmosphere.

Acid Rain effects every single being on earth. It has a detrimental effect on wildlife and the natural environments such as forest lakes and ponds.  

As shown in the picture above a food chain works from the bottom to top. The grass is eaten by the rabbits, the rabbits are eaten by the snakes and the snakes are eaten by the hawk.

When Acid rain enters the system it first starts from the producers such as grass, trees and flowers. Then once the Consumers such as small animals, insects eat the grass the acid rain levels grow larger. 

For example, the insects that the fish in the birds mouth must have had some sort of contact with acid rain. Weather it ate the insects on the surface of the water or simply used the acidic water from the river to breathe, the fish was contaminated with acidic water. Once the bird digests the fish it will now have a higher concentration of the acidic water because of biomagnification.

Now here is how we are affected by the acidic rain. Humans are just a vulnerable as any other animal, we are on the food chain as well. Same as the bird we are eating the fish. Once we eat the fish we will be contaminated. With the biomagnification in place we have the higher risk of suffering from the contamination seeing as humans are at the top of the food chain.

The pH of rain water is suppose to be 7 but in very industrial places where the pollutants get into the air, the pH is almost always less than 5 which can be very dangerous for any wildlife around the area. The acidity in the water is mostly from dissolved CO2.   2H2O(l) + 3CO2(g) --> 2H2CO3(aq) This is the balanced equation of what happens in the clouds to create the acidic water.

For humans we do have the ability to last longer than most animals and if not we do have health facilities. In the wild birds and animals are on their own. The concentration in some animals is so high that within a few days after eating the contaminated animal they die. It is a harsh reality but in the end it is humans to blame. Putting pollutants in the air does create climate change but it also does create pollutants that travel through rain and into our lakes and streams. In the end it is all connected what goes around comes around. We put the pollutants in the air and the pollutants come right back.

Acid Rain How To Affect In Climate And Weather

Acid rain is caused when acid gases rise into the sky and mix with the clouds, this causes the clouds ‘absorb’ the acid gasses and when the clouds produce rain, it falls with a higher than normal level of acidity. Rain is naturally acidic, but acid gasses make it even more acidic. Acid gasses are mainly caused by humans burning fossil fuels like coal and oil; but nature also creates these gasses with volcanoes.

The opposites of acid are alkalis; for example, toothpaste and baking powder are both alkalis. Strong alkalis can also be dangerous, such as ammonia and bleach.

The ph scale is used to measures the strength of acids and alkalis. A low ph number lets us know that a substance is acid; a high number lets us know that a substance is alkali.

Rain is normally a bit acidic, with a ph of around 5.5, if the ph of rain is below 5.5, then the rain is most likely contaminated by acid gases.

Gasses that cause acid rain are sulphur and nitrogen. When these gasses mix with the oxygen and water vapour in the air it causes sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide to be formed. Most of the sulphur released into the atmosphere comes from power stations; volcanoes also produce lots of sulphur when they erupt. Most of the nitrogen oxides come from the vehicles people around the world travel in daily, from planes, cars and trucks.

Acid rain is a problem all over the world, when acid gases are released, they go up in the sky, and then they are carried by strong winds. Acid rain in Scandinavian countries is caused by air pollution in Britain and other countries of Europe. In the USA, winds blow the air pollution to certain areas in Canada.

When rain is acidic, it affects trees, lakes, buildings and agricultural land. Sometimes rain is not very acidic and does not cause a lot of problems, but when it is acidic, it can be very harmful to the environment.

The acid in acid rain drains important minerals from the leaves and the soil, and is very bad for plants, trees and agricultural land. If the soil is alkaline; when acid rain falls on it the acid becomes neutral and so the plants are not hugely affected, but it the soil is slightly acidic, it can be disastrous. When sufficient acid rain falls in to lakes and rivers, life can all but die out in a relatively short period of time depending on the mass of water.

Humans are affected when we breathe in air pollution, this can cause breathing problems, and even cancer. Drinking water which has been contaminated with acid rain can cause brain damage over time.

Acid rain also eats into stone and metal, so buildings can be affected by erosion over time, especially sandstone and limestone which are examples of soft stones.

How to Affect Acid Rain In Drinking water

Have you ever, as a kid, tried to catch a rain drop or snowflake, only to be scolded at: "That could be acid rain!"

Experts claim that all rain is actually acidic since the precipitation binds with carbon dioxide. But, the term 'acid rain' was coined from certain air pollutants merging. Sulfur dioxide combining with nitrogen oxides and react to the oxygen in the air is what makes sulfuric acid, which causes the acid precipitation- rain, snow or fog. Sulfur dioxide comes from industrial smelters and coal burning plants. Nitrogen oxides come from car exhaust systems and can even be created by lightning.

Dark CloudIt was found that while acidic precipitation does not affect human health directly; some particle matter associated with it has shown adverse health effects, particularly among those with respiratory disorders. There is also concern surrounding the idea that that acid rain could draw mercury from the ground, which could then be carried by runoff into bodies of water. Despite these findings however, a ten year study on acid rain revealed the effects are not as damaging as first thought, causing mainly aesthetic damage to buildings, changing the chemical balance of lakes and streams and also affecting some fish species. These are all reasons for concern, for example, we do not want monuments and other outdoor sites to be destroyed. Paint, iron, zinc and steel structures are most likely to be affected. However, at least we know as humans we should not be scared as we once were.

The Clean Air Act of 1990 has made positive strides in reducing the amount of sulfur dioxides in the air. The government now regulates the amount of these chemicals that can be released into the air. Also, since this problem affects the Northeast more so than other parts of the country, the government is also working with Eastern Canada to help eliminate the toxins from the air. Each state has an allowance they can release each year.

Acid raid doesn't do too much to affect the water supply. However, some folks, either at home if they do not have a well or when camping, use the rain water catch method. Obviously, drinking water right after it is collected would be a bad idea. Boiling the water and perhaps using a disinfectant will make the water safe for consumption. Other than that, if water supplies are coming from a lake or stream that has acid rain buildup, chances are, the local water company is monitoring the pH levels for the acidity of the supply. If there were a threat, they would instill a boiling alert. Also, coupled with the water supply's treatment system, having a home filtration system will be an extra hand against the acidic contaminants. Finally, if you have well water, you are likely to be contaminated. When you get your annual tests done on your water, you will be able to tell if the pH level has rose.

Acid rain continues to be under study. New facts are found out everyday. Stay tuned to your local water company's website or the EPA site for the latest information. Especially if you live in the industrial Northeast.