In the news

(I haven't read the article, and I'm not expert myself) It depends on the solute. Evapourated water is full of minerals, carbon dioxide, nitrogen etc. In areas of pollution you get large quantities of stuff that gives you acid rain.

Hmm, but aren't those things picked up from the air? I thought acid rain was when the sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere dissolved into the water vapour in the clouds?

I can quite believe that these things give off nasty vapours near ground level, but to say that it's going up into the clouds and being rained out seems unlikely to me.

I read the bit about planes apparently dumping dispersant over residential areas, which wouldn't surprise me - there's a lot of incompetence about and dispersant is presumably a lot more nasty than just spreading fairy liquid over the oil.