Acid rain slowly walked out of the public eye, but it did not disappear.

TIME: 2015-05-21  SOURCE: PRINT

Acid rain, slowly out of the Chinese view, now "popular" is haze, but not acid rain disappear. At present, we like to use a word called "compound pollution", meaning whatever haze, haze, photochemical smog, sand dust storm, the acid rain, once upon a time there was a thing, no interest to. Among the people, it is a bit exciting to think about it.

 

    Acid rain more professional argument is acidic wet deposition, acid gaseous pollutants and particulate pollutants, as rain, snow, fog, or hail precipitation patterns and fell to the ground, in general, the rainwater pH to 5.6 as a sign of an acid rain. The main culprit causing acid rain is sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, the current two kinds of pollutants are mainly based on human activity emissions. Here are a few general conclusions about acid rain in China (Zhang Xinmin et al., 2010):


1 China's acid rain area is one of the three major acid rain zones in the world after Europe and North America.
2 the acid rain in China is mainly formed by sulfur dioxide, but it is changing to the sulfuric acid nitric acid mixed type, that is, the weight of the nitrogen oxides is more and more big.
3 since the 80's of last century, China has the relevant records began, China's traditional South acid rain area has not changed much, but there is a trend towards the north to expand
4 acidity of acid rain has a downward trend

 

 

Pictures from Baidu Encyclopedia

  This request on the "requirements of the 2010 national total sulfur dioxide emissions control in 2000," the requirements of the current appears to have been unable to reach. Original formulation of the requirements of the main goal is to fall into disuse backward production capacity, completely ignoring the economic growth brings huge energy consumption increase.
Coal is the most important source of energy in China. China's coal production and consumption are the world's first, almost equivalent to the whole world

 

 US Energy Information Administration

The sum of other countries in the world (source: Energy Information Administration US).

These coal with the same way basically have three, industrial, thermal power, and heating, in which the amount of thermal power and industry is significantly increased year by year:

 

 US Energy Information Administration

At the same time, China's sulfur dioxide emissions are so (ET al. Lu, 2010):

 

 Lu et al., 2010

  From the general trend of view, after 05-06 years of sulfur dioxide emissions peak, is currently being slow down.
Purple line is called MEP, is zoned out of the red line of the Ministry of environmental protection, the current look is gorgeous Li ignored. Moreover, the current emissions of sulfur dioxide is about 1.5 times in 2000.
At the same time, the following is the frequency of acid rain occurred in acid rain area

 

 

 

    There was a peak in the frequency of acid rain in the acid rain area of 05-06, and there was a decreasing trend at present. Reason and national plan on ("existing coal-fired power plant sulfur dioxide governance" Eleventh Five Year "plan"), slang called "Eleventh Five desulfurization, 1025 see denitration", tidies up the sulfur-containing compounds, below pack containing nitrogen.
North is not the traditional acid rain area, the current generally accepted view is that the north of precipitation, low air humidity, low soil acidity. According to the current research results, northern China, especially in the North China Plain, is a traditional agricultural region in China, and the ammonia concentration in the air is relatively high. The results indicate that there are about 3 million 70 thousand tons of ammonia emissions in North China (ET al. Zhang, 2010). Such a high ammonia concentration will inhibit the formation of acid rain, but it will also cause other serious consequences, and the other.
At present, the northern region of acid rain appears mainly in Shanxi, Beijing, Henan,, Anhui, Shandong and other parts of the region, its frequency and sulfur dioxide emissions are closely related:

 

 

 

    As shown in figure, the North China Plain is almost all sulfur dioxide emissions, acid rain frequency increase is understandable.
Sulfur dioxide emissions will lead to another problem, is the haze, that's another story.

 

Reference resources:

Lu, Z., Streets, D. G., Zhang, Q., Wang, S., Carmichael, G. R., Cheng, Y. F., Wei, C., Chin, M., Diehl, T., and Tan, Q.: Sulfur dioxide emissions in China and sulfur trends in East Asia since 2000, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 6311-6331, 2010.

Zhang, Y., Dore, A. J., Ma, L., Liu, X. J., Ma, W. Q., Cape, J. N., and Zhang, F. S.: Agricultural ammonia emissions inventory and spatial distribution in the North China Plain, Environ. Pollut., 158, 490-501, 2010.

Zhang Xinmin, Chai FA, Wang Shulan, Sun Xinzhang, and Han Mei: research status of acid rain in China, environmental science research, 2010 527-532, 2010
Note: the first published in this article is known to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Key Laboratory of aerosol chemistry and physics.