Question

Sulfur dioxide is released into the air but ends up in lakes and streams as acid rain. Based on your knowledge of the water cycle, explain how this happens.

Answer 1

When human beings burn fossil fuels they release, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides into the environment.

Those air pollutants release in the atmosphere reacts with water, oxygen and some other gases to form nitric acid and sulfuric acid.

With the help of wind the substances are spread to hundreds of miles. When the acid rain reaches the earth, it flows through lakes and other ways to enter the water system.

Answer 2

As water evapo-transpires into the atmosphere from the biosphere and hydrosphere, it cools and condenses. The water droplets in the atmosphere dissolve the sulfur dioxide molecules in the atmosphere forming sulphuric acid;

SO2(g) + H2O(l) --> H2SO3(aq)

The precipitation will, therefore, have a low pH because it is acidic. The runoff from the precipitation end up in rivers and ultimately in lakes.