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ABSTRACT Climate change is expected to affect not only the means of climatic variables, but also their variabilities1,2 and extremes such as heat waves2,3,4,5,6. In particular, modelling

studies have postulated a possible impact of soil-moisture deficit and drought on hot extremes7,8,9,10,11. Such effects could be responsible for impending changes in the occurrence of heat

waves in Europe7. Here we analyse observational indices based on measurements at 275 meteorological stations in central and southeastern Europe, and on publicly available gridded

observations12. We find a relationship between soil-moisture deficit, as expressed by the standardized precipitation index13, and summer hot extremes in southeastern Europe. This

relationship is stronger for the high end of the distribution of temperature extremes. We compare our results with simulations of current climate models and find that the models correctly

represent the soil-moisture impacts on temperature extremes in southeastern Europe, but overestimate them in central Europe. Given the memory associated with soil moisture storage, our

findings may help with climate-change-adaptation measures, such as early-warning and prediction tools for extreme heat waves. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a

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HAVE BECOME DRIER IN THE UNITED STATES SOUTHWEST Article 17 June 2021 CHANGES IN EVENT SOIL MOISTURE-TEMPERATURE COUPLING CAN INTENSIFY VERY EXTREME HEAT BEYOND EXPECTATIONS Article Open

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We acknowledge the E-Obs dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://www.ensembles-eu.org) and the data providers in the ECA &D project (http://eca.knmi.nl).

Station observations for Austria were kindly provided by the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG). Moreover, we would like to thank the ENSEMBLES community for providing

model data. This study was conducted in the framework of the European Commission FP6 STREP project CECILIA (contract GOCE 037005; http://www.cecilia-eu.org/). We further acknowledge support

from the Swiss National Science Foundation (NCCR Climate, NRP DROUGHT-CH), the EC FP7 Project CARBO-Extreme (FP7-ENV-2008-1-226701), and the CCES MAIOLICA project. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS

AND AFFILIATIONS * Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitaetsstrasse 16, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland Martin Hirschi, Sonia I. Seneviratne & Boris Orlowsky *

Federal Office for Meteorology and Climatology, MeteoSwiss, Kraehbuehlstrasse 58, 8044 Zurich, Switzerland Martin Hirschi * National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, 66 Tsarigradsko

Chaussee, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria Vesselin Alexandrov * Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Fredrik Boberg & Ole B. Christensen * National

Meteorological Administration, Sos. Bucuresti-Ploiesti 97, 013686 Bucharest, Romania Constanta Boroneant * University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Gregor Mendel Strasse 33, 1180

Vienna, Austria Herbert Formayer * Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Kroftova 43, 616 67 Brno, Czech Republic Petr Stepanek Authors * Martin Hirschi View author publications You can also

search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Sonia I. Seneviratne View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Vesselin Alexandrov View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Fredrik Boberg View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Constanta

Boroneant View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ole B. Christensen View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Herbert Formayer View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Boris Orlowsky View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar * Petr Stepanek View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS M.H. and S.I.S. designed the study and wrote

the manuscript. M.H. carried out the analyses. B.O. helped with the statistical analyses. F.B., M.H., P.S., O.B.C. and S.I.S. developed the CECILIA climate and extreme database and the

software code for the index calculation. V.A., C.B., H.F. and P.S. provided the observational indices. F.B. helped with the computation of the indices for the ENSEMBLES models. CORRESPONDING

AUTHORS Correspondence to Martin Hirschi or Sonia I. Seneviratne. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary Information (PDF 1012 kb) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Hirschi, M., Seneviratne, S.,

Alexandrov, V. _et al._ Observational evidence for soil-moisture impact on hot extremes in southeastern Europe. _Nature Geosci_ 4, 17–21 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1032 Download

citation * Received: 26 July 2010 * Accepted: 09 November 2010 * Published: 12 December 2010 * Issue Date: January 2011 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1032 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you

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