Xie et al. (2026) Warming-driven rise in soil moisture entropy signals growing instability risk in the Asian Water Tower

Identification

• Journal: Nature Communications
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-08-21
• Authors: Yiran Xie, Teng Liu, Xuan Ma, Yingshuo Lyu, Xu Wang, Yatong Qian, Yongwen Zhang, Ming Wang, Xiaosong Chen
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-76955-w

Research Groups

• School of National Safety and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
• School of Systems Science and Institute of Nonequilibrium Systems, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
• Munich Climate Center and Earth System Modelling Group, Department of Aerospace and Geodesy, TUM School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
• Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany.
• State Key Laboratory of Disaster Weather Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China.
• Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
• Yunnan Key Laboratory of Complex Systems and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China.
• Faculty of Science, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China.
• Joint International Research Laboratory of Catastrophe Simulation and Systemic Risk Governance, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China.
• Institute for Advanced Study in Physics and School of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

Short Summary

This study applies an entropy-based framework to quantify the structural organization of soil moisture (SM) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), revealing a long-term decline in entropy under wetting conditions. The results suggest that while current wetting provides a stabilizing buffer, continued warming is projected to amplify spatial heterogeneity and elevate instability risk.

Objective

• Investigate the impact of ENSO on soil moisture entropy over the TP.
• Quantify system disorder using eigen microstate entropy.
• Assess future changes in SM entropy under climate warming scenarios.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: The study focuses on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), a central regulator of the Asian and global hydrological cycle.
• Temporal Scale: The analysis covers the period from 2000 to 2024, with projected changes assessed using CMIP6 simulations under SSP126, SSP245, and SSP585 scenarios.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: GLDAS-NOAH dataset was selected for its superior performance in capturing spatiotemporal patterns of soil moisture.
• Data sources: In situ observations from the Tibet-Obs network, satellite-based SM datasets (GLDAS-NOAH, ERA5-Land, MERRA-2), and CMIP6 simulations.

Main Results

• The study reveals a significant decline in soil moisture entropy over the TP during 2000–2024, indicating an increasingly ordered system under prevailing wetting conditions.
• ENSO phases exert a clear modulation of SM entropy across the Plateau, with El Niño years corresponding to higher disorder and La Niña years to lower disorder.
• The mechanism underlying ENSO modulation involves spatial heterogeneity, with ENSO-driven inter-regional contrasts influencing soil moisture patterns.

Contributions

• This study provides novel insights into the relationship between ENSO and SM entropy over the TP, highlighting the importance of considering spatial organization in assessing system stability.
• The results suggest that continued warming may amplify spatial heterogeneity and elevate instability risk in the TP's SM system.

Funding

• National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41922003)
• German Research Foundation (DFG) through the Collaborative Research Center TRR 181 "Energy Transfer in Atmosphere and Ocean"
• European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 820970

Citation

@article{Xie2026Warmingdriven,
  author = {Xie, Yiran and Liu, Teng and Ma, Xuan and Lyu, Yingshuo and Wang, Xu and Qian, Yatong and Zhang, Yongwen and Wang, Ming and Chen, Xiaosong},
  title = {Warming-driven rise in soil moisture entropy signals growing instability risk in the Asian Water Tower},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-76955-w},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76955-w}
}