A powerful new tool reveals how climate change could transform your hometown

The climate is changing. Most people know that it's changing, and a sizeable majority even say they worry about those changes.

But at the same time, just 40% of Americans think it's going to harm them personally. And just 33% of Americans say they talk about climate change "even occasionally."

One of the reasons for this discrepancy may be that discussion of climate science tends to happen at the 30,000-foot level - examining global shifts in average temperatures and weather - or focuses on extreme environments, like the Arctic, where the impacts of climate change are most extreme.

But climate change is going to impact every corner of the Earth in some way or another.

That's why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's slick new online Climate Explorer is so fascinating. 

The updated system lets you zip across the 48 contiguous states (and Washington DC), and see for yourself how the local climate in any given neighborhood is likely to change between 2010 and 2100. The Climate Explorer also includes data on how the climate has behaved between 1950 and 2010; scroll forward in time, and you're seeing data pulled from international climate models.

NOAA's site plots out changes according to two possible futures - one in which global emissions peak in 2040 and then begin to decrease, and another in which emissions keep increasing apace. Take a look.