Today sees the launch of the Discovery Channel’s Earth Live web application – brought to my attention by the ever-vigilant chaps at Wired.com.

“It may be more important than ever to track the state of the planet and Discovery Earth Live is designed to help you do that” says the Earth Live page. It’s big talk but the software for the application is pretty impressive – using Adobe Flex technology to wrap video around a three-dimensional object in real time AND allow you to move the globe around without loss of the video frames.

I have already successfully lost a tea break to watching storm patterns and changes sea temperature (it’s more interesting than it might sound!) though sadly there is little more to do at this stage. However the potential is huge and according to The Industry Standard “Future content will include migration paths of birds and animals, and projections of what the world may look like if global warming goes unchecked.” More big talk for the cool little app, which is also available as a facebook widget.