A new approach to detection of anthropogenic temperature changes in the Australian region

Abstract

A new method has been applied for detecting a human influence on regional temperature changes in Australia over the last 50 years, including the whole of Australia, the southern half of Australia and the southeastern sector of Australia. There was a strong relationship between interannual variations of rainfall and temperature in different regions in Australia. The rainfall-related component of the temperature variations was removed using linear regression and the residual temperature variations were much smaller for maximum and mean temperature, and diurnal temperature range. Model simulations of regional temperature and rainfall variations agreed reasonably well with observations. Trends i..