I ignored the "in daylight" part , because for the most part , the air in daylight or at night is warmer than the ground , however in the winter months the air can become colder than the ground and varies with geographical location.
As well as ignoring the key part of the
biocab sentence, you have it exactly opposite. Like I wrote in my
26477 post, the surface heats in sunlight. Whether that surface is the top millimeter layer of a rock, soil, wood chips, or gravel, it heats first. The darker the object, the more it will heat up. As far as the light can penetrate, that is the top layer that heats up. Some of that heat is then removed by the air through convection, conduction or radiation. The rest of the heat will go to warming the ground just below the surface through conduction. The air will always be colder or the same temperature as the surface layer of the ground unless it is night or cloudy AND a warm wind, that was warmed by the surface elsewhere, blows in. The only possible exception I can think of may be snow on the ground that reflects the sun's light.
