The ‘Asian water tower’ is starting to wobble, computer simulations show

“Asia’s water tower” is heading towards a more unpredictable and unstable future, according to a new study measuring the Tibetan Plateau’s stability.

The study, published on August 21 in Nature Communications, examined the entropy of the region to gauge how much chaos or disorder was building up in a complex system.

The results were released just days before a catastrophic flash flood struck the Nepal-China border, killing hundreds and leaving a trail of devastation along the way. Chen Xiaosong,...