2023 is now just 9 years away, and that is the year scientists predict that Jamaica will be an unfamiliar place for its inhabitants and visitors, a place with a wholly different climate. The coldest year in Jamaica after 2023 will probably be warmer than the hottest year anyone there has ever experienced. A recently published article by Camilo Mora et al. (2013) presents a new indicator of the year when the projected mean climate of a given location is expected to move to a state well outside the bounds of historical variability, for different emission scenarios.
Results show that global mean climate is expected to depart from its current variability as early as 2047 if CO2 emissions persist at a business-as-usual rate or around 2069 for more optimistic scenarios. Nevertheless, at local scales winners and losers of climate change may turn up even faster than that, with “unprecedented climate […] happening more rapidly at the tropics”. Locations such as New Guinea (2020), Jamaica (2023), Equatorial Guinea (2024) are expected to have a first flavor of the climate change to come, possibly with a huge toll on ecosystem biodiversity and community livelihood.