On our planet, oscillations of a size comparable to the Earth’s perimeter, called Schumann resonances, occur naturally. These are caused by the electrical activity of the atmosphere. Their variations allow us to monitor the weather and the activity of the Sun. Recently it has been suggested that they may also be associated with earthquakes and affect human health.
Frequently when it rains, we see lightning, which is a manifestation of electrical activity in our atmosphere. At any given time, about 2,000 thunderstorms occur globally, producing approximately 50 lightning strikes every second. The regions that contribute most to this phenomenon are in the tropical parts of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The earth’s atmosphere has a layer full of charged particles (i.e. it is ionized); this layer begins approximately 90 km above the earth’s surface and is called the ionosphere.
Between the surface of our planet and the lower part of the ionosphere, a cavity is created through which electromagnetic waves generated by lightning travel. This region acts as a resonator for waves whose length is comparable to the radius of the Earth, in the band known as extremely low frequencies. A resonator is a system that oscillates naturally at frequencies called resonances. These resonances, generated by global electrical activity, are known as Schumann resonance (SR).
The idea that global electromagnetic resonances occur from a natural source had already been presented by Nikola Tesla in 1905, but the first theoretical model of global resonances was developed by Winfried Otto Schumann in 1952. The first measurements of them were achieved by Martin Balser and Charles Wagner in 1960. Observations indicate that the fundamental frequency of the Schumann resonance has a wavelength close to the perimeter of the Earth, and its harmonics have wavelengths that are submultiples of the fundamental wavelength.
Since the Schumann resonance occurs between the lower part of the ionosphere and the Earth’s surface, changes that occur in the ionosphere or within the cavity alter the frequencies and amplitudes.
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