Although several studies have documented theareas on Earth where unprecedented climates is likely to occur inresponse to ongoing greenhouse gas emissions24,25 , our understandingof climate change still lacks a precise indication of the time at which theclimate of a given location will shift wholly outside the range of his-torical precedents.To provide an indication of the projected timing of climate depar-ture under alternative greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, we havedeveloped an index that determines the year when the values of agiven climatic variable exceed the bounds of historical variabilityfor a particular location (Fig. 1a). We emphasize that although ourindex commonly identifies future dates, this does not imply thatclimate change is not already occurring. In fact, our index projectswhen ongoing climate change signals the start of a radically differentclimate.
Climate departure for a specific location on the planet is defined as the year when the values of a given climatic variable exceed the bounds of historical variability.
