The global analysis also predicts that if greenhouse gases continue to be emitted at a "business as usual" rate, New York City and Washington, D.C., will experience radically altered climates in 2047 (plus or minus about five years for a margin of error). So in about 35 years, even the coldest monthly dips in temperature on the eastern seaboard will be warmer than any time in the past 150 years.

"We're providing a new metric on when ongoing climate change will lead to environments like we have never seen before," lead researcher Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii told reporters, "when the coldest year of the future will be warmer than the hottest year in the past."

The study's authors