Is Earth Positively or Negatively Charged?

[spideyinspace]

i read from this site http://thunder.msfc.nasa.gov/primer/primer2.html that electrons from lower portion of clouds goes to ground beacuse of Earth's positive charge...

but the below two sites tell that Earth is negatively charged...
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...2284.Es.r.html
http://www.nuenergy.org/alt/earth_charge.htm

which one is correct?..is Earth positively charged or negatively charged?

 

[kateman]

both are

see the Earth as a whole (including atmosphere) is generally thought to be neutral in total

while the lightning page is looking at the Earth only and not the atmosphere.