Williams/Abstract The objectives of this research are the behavior of the Earth s naturally occurring Schumann resonances on three different scales. At a global scale, the objective is to understand the pronounced variability of background Schumann resonance intensity and how this variability is influenced by the temperature-related conditional instability in the troposphere. At the mesoscale, the objective is to understand the meteorological conditions associated with the production of energetic positive ground flashes that produce ELF Q-bursts. We are now able to map these events on a global basis from single-station observations and this may enable an investigation of the global diurnal variation of mescoscale convective systems. This variation may be quite distinct from the traditional diurnal behavior of the global circuit. At the local lightning scale, the objective is to understand the nature of the continuing current and the charge transfer to ground associated with the sprite-producing positive ground flashes.
