Fig. 2: Temperature, rainfall and large forest fires in southeast Australia.
a, b Annual (January–December) means of the daily maximum temperature (Tmax) anomaly (a) and precipitation (b) in the southeast Australian states of NSW, ACT and Victoria (Methods). Horizontal line in (a, b) is the 1961–1990 mean. Black dots in (a, b) denote years where forest fires burnt >0.5 M hectares (Methods). Spring/summer fire seasons are aligned with annual averages of the preconditioning year (i.e., the 2019/20 fire season is shown against 2019 mean climate). Grey shading in b denotes major droughts in southeastern Australia; Federation Drought (1895–1902), WWII drought (1937–1947), Millennium Drought (1997–2009), and the current drought (2017–2020). c Scatterplot of the Tmax anomaly, precipitation and large fire data in (a, b), shaded by decade, and demonstrating the strong linearity of temperature and precipitation in southeast Australia and the preferential occurrence of large fires in hot and dry years. Quadrants in c are defined by the 1961–1990 climatological means.
