Abstract
ABSTRACT Soil moisture–temperature coupling has been shown to affect the severity and occurrences of extreme temperature events like heatwaves and droughts. In this study, we quantify the soil moisture–temperature coupling over India at daily and climatological scales. Our results show maximum climatological coupling over north and central India during pre-monsoon months. The coupling strength is related to soil moisture content. Daily coupling is calculated for two heatwave events (2009 and 2015) to determine whether land–atmosphere coupling enhances the heatwave event. We observed strong soil moisture–temperature coupling during the 2009 heatwave, whereas weak coupling is observed in the 2015 heatwave. Our results suggest that soil moisture anomalies could enhance heat anomalies and temperature anomalies through the reduction in latent heat flux, leading to enhanced soil moisture–temperature coupling. Thus our study highlights the importance of soil moisture and associated coupling in understanding and predicting heatwave events.
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