Note that this time there is no reference to percentage by volume, or ppMv, he just says that we have increased carbon by 0.012%. Isn't it closer to 40%
The first couple of answers seem to miss the point, Dr Jello was talking about the percentage "more carbon", not about CO2 as a fraction of the atmosphere--his statement is completely wrong.
JimZ
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I would say neither. I suspect the number is closer to 60% since you asked how much we added. Some of what we added is no longer there and presumably mostly dissolved in the ocean.
Darwinist
Yes, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by about 40%.
Dr Jello, presumably deliberately, does not understand that a percentage increase is expressed in terms of the original amount. Graphicconception is essentially correct; Jello does claim that CO2 has increased from 0.029% to about 0.041% of the atmosphere as a whole. He just neglects to tell anyone about the last bit.
Edit: Is it this version of the common "skeptic" claim?
<< We have only added at best 0.012% more carbon into the atmosphere in the last 100 years. This isn't enough to cause any change in the climate. >>
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20141209104716AA9R5D1
"Skeptics" usually word this in such a way as to make it appear ambiguous, at least to the non-scientific majority; not so in this case, it's just plain wrong!
Trevor
Hi Pegminer,
No. of course it’s not correct. What Dr Jello is doing is comparing the increase in CO2 to the atmosphere as a whole – it’s a chalk and cheese scenario. At best it’s ignorance, at worst it’s a blatant lie.
It’s not dissimilar to saying that in a school class there were 20 pupils and now there’s 30, therefore the number of pupils has increased by 0.000000139% (i.e. 10 more pupils out of a global population of 7.2 billion).
Before the onset of manmade global warming there were approx 280 parts per million by volume of CO2 in the atmosphere, today it’s 397ppmv. Simple mathematics tells us that CO2 has increased by 41.179% (397 ÷ 280).
Taking the atmosphere as a whole, before industrialisation the amount of CO2 was 0.0280% whereas today it’s 0.0397% - it’s still a 41% increase but what some people do is to look only at the difference between 0.0280 and 0.0397 as if they weren’t percentages, it’s one of the most basic mathematical errors there is.
We have increased CO2 by approx 0.012% in comparison to the atmosphere as a whole (by volume). I guess some people like to present this erroneous figure out of context in an attempt to trivialise the real volumetric percentage increase in an attempt to fool the scientifically and mathematically illiterate.
Kano
It is the atmosphere as a whole that concerns us, if it does alter climate it will be the total amount that causes a change.
You are all just playing with semantics, yes man is increasing atmospheric content by 40% but it is still a very small fraction of the atmosphere.
Jello is correct in what he says, just as you are correct in what you say, it just depends on where you lay the emphasis.
Statistics mislead, It was once said that 98% of heroin addicts in NYC started by smoking marijuana, but the pro cannabis people replied, but 98% of smokers do not go on to be heroin addicts, both were stastically correct statements.
campbelp2002
We have increased CO2 from .028% of the air to .04% of the air, which is where he gets the 0.012 (.04-.028). So in a sense it is correct. The 43% is how much more .04 is that .028, .04/.028=43%.
Of course he wants to make the change seem unimportant, so he uses the small number way of saying the same thing as the larger number. This would not happen if CO2 were measured as total tons of CO2 in the air. There ARE 43% more tons of CO2 in the air now than there were 200 years ago.