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Reply to: Atlantic oceanic droughts do not threaten Asian water tower

Nature volume 638, pages E16–E18 (2025)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 19 February 2025

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replying to Y. Zhao et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08357-1 (2025).

The arguments presented by Zhao et al. in the associated Comment1 can be summarized in four points, which we address individually below. We appreciate the interest of Zhao et al. in our work2 and believe that their contentions arise largely from the misunderstanding of our methods and analyses, which we clarify herein.

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Fig. 1: Cross-correlation analysis between TWS over HSRs, TPM1 and TPM2 and climate conditions over southeast North Atlantic Ocean (NATO3) after 2006.
Fig. 2: Temporal variations in vertical velocities of wind at different pressure levels and snow-cover areas in TPM1 and TPM2.

Data availability

All data are available from a public dataset and can be downloaded from Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10582465)16.

Code availability

Codes can be downloaded from Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10582465)16.

References

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Acknowledgements

Q.Z., Z.S., W.W. and G.W. acknowledge the support from the China National Key R&D Program (grant no. 2019YFA0606900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 42041006) and the Engineering Research Center for Water Resources & Ecological Water in Cold and Arid Region of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China (grant no. 2020.A-003). Y.P. acknowledges the support from the National Science Foundation (grant no. 1752729). D.F. acknowledges the support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 200021_184634).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Qiang Zhang, Zexi Shen

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Interdisciplinary Institute of Environment and Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China

    Qiang Zhang

  2. Department of Environmental Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Zexi Shen

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Yadu Pokhrel

  4. Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Daniel Farinotti

  5. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Daniel Farinotti

  6. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  7. Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  8. National Water and Energy Center, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

    Vijay P. Singh

  9. Department of Geosciences and Hydrology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Chong-Yu Xu

  10. Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Wenhuan Wu & Gang Wang

Authors
  1. Qiang Zhang
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  8. Gang Wang
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Contributions

Z.S. designed and performed the analyses. All of the authors contributed to the draft and further modification of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qiang Zhang or Zexi Shen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Information

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Zhang, Q., Shen, Z., Pokhrel, Y. et al. Reply to: Atlantic oceanic droughts do not threaten Asian water tower. Nature 638, E16–E18 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08358-0

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