Refrigerants are in every refrigerator, freezer and air conditioner, and the world is on track to make a lot more of them in the years to come. They’re also powerful greenhouse gases: often thousands of times more warming than carbon dioxide. Prof. Ronald Prinn, an expert in the physics and chemistry of our climate system, joins TILclimate to discuss the past, present and future of how these chemicals affect our planet.

Ronald Prinn is a Professor of Atmospheric Science in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) as well as a Director at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change (MIT Joint Program). He has led the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), which measures the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion over the globe for the past three decades.