Abstract
<jats:p>In recent decades, Europe has experienced a marked increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, a trend projected to continue under future climate change. The Mediterranean basin is particularly vulnerable to these extremes, making it crucial to better understand the processes controlling their development and persistence. Among these, land-atmosphere interactions influence the exchange of water and energy between the land surface and the atmosphere and can either amplify or mitigate extreme heat conditions. At the same time, future land-use and land-cover changes (LULC) are expected to modify these exchanges, although their impact on heatwave-related feedback remains poorly quantified.In this study, we investigate the influence of evolving LULC on land-atmosphere coupling and heatwave characteristics under future climate conditions across Europe, with particular emphasis on Mediterranean regions. Simulations were performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF v4.5.1.4) under the SSP3-7.0 scenario within the EURO-CORDEX and LUCAS Phase 2 frameworks. A standard experiment with fixed 2015 land cover is compared with a transient LULC simulation in which land cover evolves annually following the Land Use Harmonization (LUH2) protocol.Extreme temperature days are identified using percentile-based thresholds of daily maximum temperature (TX90p), while heatwaves are defined as periods of at least five consecutive exceedances. To assess land-atmosphere feedback during these events, coupling metrics are computed from normalized temperature, latent heat flux, and soil moisture variables, allowing consistent comparisons across regions and simulations. The analysis focuses on the relationships between TX90p and latent heat flux (TX90p x LH) and between TX90p and soil moisture (TX90p x SMOIS), allowing the identification of coupled and decoupled surface-atmosphere regimes.By linking future changes in land cover to variations in coupling strength during extreme heat events, this work aims to improve our understanding on the physical mechanisms controlling future heatwave intensity and persistence, and to assess the extent to which land-use may influence future heat-related climate risks.AcknowledgementsThe authors wish to acknowledge the financial support from the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, I.P./MCTES) through national funds (PIDDAC): LA/P/0068/2020 - https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0068/2020, UID/50019/2025, https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/PRR/50019/2025, UID/PRR2/50019/2025.L.C.S. and R.M.C. also acknowledge individual funding from FCT, I.P./MCTES grants https://doi.org/10.54499/UI/BD/154675/2023, and https://doi.org/10.54499/2021.01280.CEECIND/CP1650/CT0006.</jats:p>