There's ample evidence climate change is messing with the world's phenology, aka the timing of natural life cycles. Warmer temperatures are hastening the emergence of butterflies and driving short-range migratory birds north weeks earlier. They're melting Arctic ice and blocking polar bears from their main prey, seals, creating shrunken bears more than 140 pounds lighter than those of the '80s.
And in the United States, the effects of the great heat-up have become pronounced in our gardens, where warm weather-loving plants now thrive in once-cool environments.
The mutation of the nation's growing seasons is clear in this map comparison NOAA made for the American Public Garden Association. It shows how average overnight minimum temperatures have changed between the former U.S. Climate Normals (tracked between 1971 and 2000) and the current normals (1981 to 2010).
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