This report involves a well description on acid rain as well as a focus on acid rain in eastern Canada. This report contains a very helpful basic background on acid rain as well as a questionnaire. It involves an annual report on the Federal-Provincial Agreements, sulphur dioxide emissions in the seven most eastern provinces, trends in acid deposition in the Atlantic provinces from 1980-1994, as well as acid precipitation in Kejimkujik, Nova Scotia. It also includes data tables, graphs and interesting facts concerning acid rain.
This report is on acid rain and identifies the harmful effect it has on almost everything such as aquatic ecosystems, forests, farming, and even human health. It shows the sulphur dioxide emissions in the seven most eastern provinces along with their limits and how much sulphur dioxide they emitted in 1980, 1990, 1994, 1995, and 1996. It also contains sulphur emissions from major sources from four Canadian provinces as well as sulphur dioxide emissions from electric power generators in three Canadian provinces. There are also some interesting questions and answers and facts are included also.
This information was organized from various websites. It also contains information from a newspaper article about a new monitoring site for acid rain in Irish Cove located in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The atmosphere, unpolluted, is the means of life on earth. It is a thin layer of gases which surrounds our planet. It is known that without the atmosphere our planet would be inhabitable, but we continue to put numerous amounts of toxic waste into it. The burning of fossils fuels, produces gases that cause acid rain. Acid rain is harmful to forests, lakes, rivers, and any wildlife that is located in these areas.
High standards of living, which developed countries are accustomed to, depends upon fossil fuels to withhold these standards. Therefore, they cause the pollutants that cause acid rain. Acid rain comes in all forms of precipitation. Besides rain, it can be mist, snow, and dry deposition. Pollutants deposited on the environment before they are absorbed by the moisture in the atmosphere is called dry deposition. In measuring acid rain, the pH scale is used. This scale measures the acidity of acid rain. A measurement of seven is neutral, less than seven is acidic, and more than seven is basic.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes rain to become naturally acidic because it absorbs the carbon dioxide and makes a weak carbonic acid with a pH between five and six. Burning of fossil fuels causes sulphur dioxide and nitrogen, which happens to be the major causes of acid rain. These gases are emitted into the atmosphere where they are absorbed by the moisture and become weak sulphuric and nitric acids, with a pH of around three. Natural gas contains little or no sulphur and does not cause much pollution. Sulphur dioxide is produced by coal fired power stations.
Vehicles, especially cars, are the major producers of the nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere. Some oxides come from the vehicle exhaust alone, but others form when the exhaust gases react with the air. Exhaust gases also react with strong sunlight to produce poisonous ozone gas that damages plant growth and in some cases, human health. Sulphur is one of the chemical elements that make up the earth. It can come from volcanic eruptions, sea spray, and tiny sea creatures called plankton. In the world as a whole almost 50 percent of sulphur dioxide in the air comes from natural sources of sulphur, like the ones previously mentioned.
