On this subject, the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) onboard of the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) has 16 years (1998-2013) of stable and continuous observations of total lightning along the tropics, making it possible to depict trends in convection and thunderstorm updraft over more than a decade. Here we address total lightning trends observed by LIS in different temporal (annual, seasonal and instantaneous) and spatial (large and regional) scales. Mean flash rates show no significant trends. On the other hand, instantaneous flash rates have systematic negative trends over most of the tropics (except southeast South America), and higher negative trends are observed at the extreme instantaneous values (higher-end of the orbit gridded flash rate distributions, or highest quantiles). It is also given a projected estimate for the future climate based on extrapolation of the trends found here, with special attention at the regional scales of places with most lightning occurrence (i.e., Earth’s lightning hotspots).