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Who first used the phrase acid rain?
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Acid rain
Forest dieback caused by acid rain in the Jizera Mountains, Czech Republic.
The phrase acid rain was first coined in 1852 by the Scottish chemist Robert Angus Smith. He developed the term while investigating the chemistry of rainwater in the vicinity of industrial cities located in England and Scotland.1
Smith later detailed the phenomenon in his 1872 book, Air and Rain: The Beginnings of a Chemical Climatology. While he identified the concept in the 19th century, it was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that acid rain was widely recognized as a significant regional environmental issue.1