Sinikka J. Paulus

Doctoral Researcher at the Eco-Meteorology Group (MPI Jena) and the

Group Terrestrial Ecohydrology (FSU Jena), currently working at

Tennenbacher Straße 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany
Room 03.053

phone: +49 761 203-54050

email: sinikka.paulus@ecoclim.uni-freiburg.de

The overarching aim of my research is to improve our understanding of land-atmosphere interactions. I currently transferring knowledge from the soil physical community about the role of soil hydraulic parameters for the gas phase water exchange between soil and atmosphere to understand large scale patterns in (micro-) meteorological observations.

In the first study of my PhD project I studied complexity of the water cycle at the Majadas de Tietar field site, using a combination of several high-resolution data streams, including large weighing lysimeters, micrometeorological, and soil hydrological measurements. My work revealed the prevalence of different non-rainfall water types (dew, fog and soil water vapor adsorption) within the ecosystem across all seasons (Paulus et al. 2022).

Now, I focus on investigating the spatial and temporal extent of soil vapor adsorption in ecosystems. I've successfully demonstrated the detectability of soil vapor adsorption in semi-arid ecosystems using eddy covariance (Paulus et al. 2023; minor revisions) and am currently analyzing data from a global network of eddy covariance stations. I would like to quantify the role of soil water adsorption in different ecosystems, and thereby explore the role of soil hydraulic properties under arid conditions.

News:

Looking forward to showing my latest work this year in April at EGU:

Session: AS2.4 – Air-Land Interactions (General Session)

EGU24-14868 Mapping soil moisture uptake by dry soils across Eddy covariance measurement sites

by Sinikka Paulus et al.

List of publications:

Journal Articles

Paulus, S. J.; El-Madany, T. S.; Orth, R.; Hildebrandt, A.; Wutzler, T.; Carrara, A.; Moreno, G.; Perez-Priego, O.; Kolle, O.; Reichstein, M. et al.: Resolving seasonal and diel dynamics of non-rainfall water inputs in a Mediterranean ecosystem using lysimeters. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 26 (23), pp. 6263 - 6287 (2022) (DOI)

Jochheim, H.; Wirth, S.; Gartiser, V.; Paulus, S.; Haas, C.; Gerke, H. H.; Maier, M.: Dynamics of soil CO₂ efﬂux and vertical CO₂ production in a European beech and a scots pine forest. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change 5, 826298 (2022) (DOI)

Haas, C.; Paulus, S.; Maier, M.; Jochheim, H.; Gerke, H. H.: Approach for using measured soil gas diffusion coefficients in Hydrus 1D with examples from forest soils. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science 183 (5), pp. 562 - 566 (2020) (DOI)

Kübert, A.*; Paulus, S.*; Dahlmann, A.; Werner, C.; Rothfuss, Y.; Orlowski, N.; Dubbert, M.: Water stable isotopes in ecohydrological field research: Comparison between in situ and destructive monitoring methods to determine soil water isotopic signatures. Frontiers in Plant Science 11, 387 (2020) (DOI) (*shared first-authorship)

Data Publication

Paulus, S.; El-Madany, T. S.; Wutzler, T.; Carrara, A.; Moreno, G. M.; Reichstein, M.; Orth, R.; Hertel, M.; López-Jimenez, R.; Migliavacca, M.: High-resolution large weighing lysimeter measurements with meteorological and soil-hydrological variables from a Mediterranean Savanna. (2022) (DOI)

Preprint

Paulus, S. J.; Orth, R.; Lee, S.-C.; Hildebrandt, A.; Jung, M.; Nelson, J. A.; El-Madany, T. S.; Carrara, A.; Moreno, G.; Mauder, M. et al.: Interpretability of negative latent heat fluxes from Eddy Covariance measurements during dry conditions. EGUsphere, (2023) (DOI)

Khanal, P., Hoek Van Dijke, A.J.; Schaffhauser, T.; Li, W.; Paulus, S.J.; Zhan, C.; and Orth R.:
Relevance of near-surface soil moisture vs. terrestrial water storage for global vegetation functioning
EGUsphere, (2023) (DOI)