Living Globe is a realistic looking animated earth with illuminated surface relief.

The program allows to interactively change the sea level between 250 meters below and above normal and thus watch the effect of large scale climate changes. You can see in real time how land areas disappear under water or ocean bottom becomes dry land.

The illumination of the earth is correctly calculated according to the time of day and seasons, and you can watch how cities on the night side are lighting up with the closing darkness.

Snow and ice at higher latitudes grow during the cold season and shrink in summer. Sun and moon positions are correctly calculated, and the sky view displays the real positions of more than 1 million stars from NASA's tycho star catalog.

The world population clock shows how the number of inhabitants changes every second for each of the continents.

A time travel function lets you go back and forth in time and see the effect of seasons in fast motion. You can also change position and flight velocity of your camera if you want to see specific areas of interest.

Living Globe can be used as a stand-alone application or as a screen saver.

Limitations:

■ nag screen