Dr Jello claims "We have only added at best 0.012% more carbon into the atmosphere...", is this correct?

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.

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=20...

"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!

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.

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.

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.

Your "bumbling" into math again. Total "carbon" rise from "carbon dioxide" as a % of the whole atmosphere is much less than 0.012%. CO2 makes up 0.0397% of the whole atmosphere. 1 part is carbon and 2 parts are oxygen, which means the total "carbon" in our atmosphere adds up to 0.01323333%. The rise in "carbon" as part of our whole atmosphere has been 0.004% if the actual CO2 rise is 0.012%.

Your question specifically asks about CARBON and NOT CO2.

No. Not. I believe the Jello is a paid propagandist. I do not believe that a real person would devote so much time and be so consistently wrong.

We have added about 40%. He is off by a factor of more than 3,000 times.

If I have 2 lottery tickets and buy one more, I've increased my odds of winning 50%. Still that additional ticket won't get me any closer to winning the jackpot. Same ratios apply to co2.

What difference does it make? CO2 does NOT drive warming like Al Gore and all of his Alarmists friends claim. And we all know that as the oceans warm they give off CO2 and there has been some ocean warming over the last several decades. So increased CO2 levels are to be expected as a natural response to ocean warming. Probably nearly all of increased CO2 levels are due to this natural out-gassing and was not caused by human activity.

Alarmists claim that we currently have the highest CO2 levels in thousands of years (that is not true, but that is what they claim) YET the planet is NOT warming and hasn't been for more than 18 years. So much for man-made Global Warming 'theory.' Where do taxpayers get their money back?

-----------------------

My guess would be that Jello is claiming an increase from 0.029% of the atmosphere to about 0.041% while you are comparing 0.029 to 0.04 as a ratio.

Aren't statistics wonderful?