[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/EW-03-09-12-Acid-Rain.mp3|titles=EW 03-09-12 Acid Rain]
Every now and then I run into someone who believes that acid rain is a hoax. No use in pointing out that the rain in the eastern United States is more acidic than the rain in California—an area not downwind of major power plants.
Or that the rain in the eastern U.S. has become less acidic since implementation of the Clean Air Act. These folks refuse to believe that humans can alter rain. More likely, they believe that solving the acid rain problem will cost consumers and shareholders significant money. Jobs will move to China.
Some have even argued that the soil is naturally acidic so that acid rain can’t be much of a burden on forests. While it is true that the waters draining forests are typically acidic, their acidity is derived from humic acid in the soil, which is much weaker.
In contrast, nitric and sulfuric acids found in acid rain, are strong acids that strip the soil of nutrients that are essential for forest and crop growth.
“That acidity has relentlessly over time leached the buffering capacity out of the soil,” says Dr. Gene Likens, an ecologist at the Cary Institute. “Thinking about Tums and Rolaids in your sour stomach, well the Tums and Rolaids have been leached away by acid rain over a long period of time. We experimentally added it back and the system has respondent positively.”
Chinese officials are already struggling with the acid rain problem. As more and more power plants are brought into operation in China, rising acidity threatens farmland.
Web Extra
Dr. Gene Likens, an ecologist at the Cary Institute, discusses the discovery of acid rain…
[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Likens_extra.mp3|titles=Likens_extra]Photo, taken on September 6, 2007, courtesy of Parry via Flickr.