These scatterplots and Connected Scatterplots support a relationship between the kurtosis of annual rainfall at Manilla NSW and the de-trended smoothed HadCRUT4 series of global temperatures.

[SUPERSEDED
This post had inadequated data. It is now superseded by a section in the post “Rainfall kurtosis vs. HadCRUT4, revised” of 20 May 2018.]

The raw data, as observed

The first scatterplot compares (y-axis) all the calculated unsmoothed values of kurtosis of annual rainfall at Manilla, NSW with (x-axis) the unsmoothed values of the HadCRUT4 series of global near-surface temperature at those dates.
[I have plotted rainfall values lagged by five years on all of the scatterplots shown. This lagging makes little difference to the first two scatterplots.]

On this first graph, the fitted linear trend barely supports a positive relation of kurtosis to temperature. The slope is low (1.05) and the R-squared only 0.16. There is an aberrant cloud of points in the top left corner.

The raw data, HadCRUT4 de-trended

This graph takes a first step towards a better model for the relationship: the secular trend of the temperature series (that is, the global warming) is removed. For comparison, I have not re-scaled the x-axis.
Although still very weak, the relation is much enhanced. The slope (2.35) is twice as steep and the R-squared (0.24) increased by 50%.

Smoothed data, HadCRUT4 de-trended

This third graph uses smoothed data. The HadCRUT4 series is  “decadally-smoothed” (as published) with a 21-point binomial filter to remove high frequency noise. The rainfall data, already damped by its 21-year sampling window, has been further smoothed with a 9-point Gaussian filter.
This graph is a Connected Scatterplot, that shows the trajectory of the rainfall-temperature relation with the passing of time.

Smoothing both data sets has given a much closer relation. The R-squared value is almost doubled again, to 0.43, and the slope is increased to 3.70. The date labels show that the relation before 1910 was different from that at later dates. (This had also been clear in the Dual axis line chart, copied here, from the post “Rainfall Kurtosis Matches HadCRUT4”.)

Smoothed data, HadCRUT4 de-trended, from 1908 to 2002

In this final graph, I have discarded the first eleven years. The linear regression based on smoothed values from 1908 to 2002 has a steep slope of 5.21 and a respectable R-squared value of 0.84.

I had prepared similar graphs for lag values of rainfall kurtosis from zero up to nine. The lag value of five years tends to maximise the slope and the R-squared values.
Choice of a five-year lag tends to form hair-pin loops in the trace, while shorter lags give wider clockwise loops and longer lags give wider anti-clockwise loops.
The lag value of five years implies that the Manilla annual rainfall kurtosis value for a given year matches the de-trended HadCRUT value that occurs five years later.

[Back to the main post on this topic: “Rainfall kurtosis matches HadCRUT4”.]