Is Australia's continued warming caused by drought?

Abstract

Twenty years of additional data confirm a finding from the 1990s that interannual variations in Australian mean annual maximum temperature are closely related to rainfall variations, but that observed warming since about 1970 has been stronger than would be expected from the observed rainfall trends. While droughts exacerbate daily maximum temperatures and strongly influence interannual temperature variations, the long-term warming trend is not caused by any trend to decreased rainfall, or decreased cloudiness. The enhanced greenhouse effect seems the most likely explanation of this apparently inexorable anomalous warming.