AbstractWe develop a transfer operator-based method for the detection of coherent structures and their associated lifespans. Characterising the lifespan of coherent structures allows us to identify dynamically meaningful time windows, which may be associated with transient coherent structures in the localised phase space, as well as with time intervals within which these structures experience fundamental changes, such as merging or separation events. The localised transfer operator approach we pursue allows one to explore the fundamental properties of a dynamical system without full knowledge of the dynamics. The algorithms we develop prove useful not only in the simple case of a periodically driven double well potential model, but also in more complex cases generated using the rotating Boussinesq equations.