Gilbert Norman Plass (March 22, 1920 – March 1, 2004) was a Canadian physicist who in the 1950s made predictions about the increase in global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the 20th century and its effect on the average temperature of the planet that closely match measurements reported half a century later.
In 1963, he accepted a position as the first professor of atmospheric and space science at the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies (now The University of Texas at Dallas), where he remained for five years.
In 1953 Plass told Time magazine of his work on the effects of CO2 from industrial sources as a greenhouse gas, and the potential implications of an increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for global warming.
[6] From 1956 onwards, Plass published a series of papers on the topic, partly based on advanced calculations of the absorption of infrared radiation, and he made use of early electronic computers.
In 2007 the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report estimated a climate sensitivity of 2 to 4.5 °C for CO2 doubling, a CO2 rise of 37% since pre-industrial times and a 1900-2000 warm-up of around 0.7 °C.