The Tibetan Plateau is a giant sponge that soaks up rain and snow, then releases water to Asia's rivers. Since 2000, the sponge has been getting wetter. Scientists decided to check: does this moisture make the sponge stronger, or does it soften it?
They used a measure of disorder — entropy. If moisture in the soil is distributed chaotically, with dry patches here and wet patches there, entropy is high. If moisture is roughly the same everywhere, the system is ordered, and entropy is low. It turned out that from 2000 to 2024, entropy decreased. Moisture on the plateau became more uniform, as if the sponge were being soaked evenly rather than splashed from a watering can in random spots. This is good: the plateau was building up a safety margin.
The most alarming results came from climate models for the future. If warming continues, entropy will start to rise by mid-century. Order in soil moisture will break down: some areas will become too wet, others too dry. The sponge will lose its resilience and start to tear. Sharp swings could hit the rivers that depend on this water, from the Indus to the Yangtze. For now, the plateau is holding up, but not forever.
The Tibetan Plateau feeds ten of Asia's largest rivers, on which more than a billion people depend.