A Southern moisture pathway accelerates wetting of the Tibetan Plateau (opens in new tab)

The Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as Asia’s water tower, has experienced a pronounced wetting trend in recent decades, often attributed to moisture transport anomalies through western and eastern boundaries caused by westerly anomalies. Here we show that this explanation is incomplete. Using a complex network analysis, we find that humid air advection from the Atlantic is largely blocked by concurrent drying over the Iranian Plateau, precluding a western moisture supply. Instead, the TP wetting...