目前气候变暖导致的冰川退缩, 引起了广泛关注.以新疆天山乌鲁木齐河源1号冰川为例, 根据1959年以来的观测资料, 研究了冰川消融对气候变化的响应. 结果表明: 近50 a来冰川在表面粒雪特征、成冰带、冰川温度、面积、厚度及末端位置等方面发生了显著变化, 而这些变化均与气温的升高有着密切的联系; 冰川的退缩自20世纪80年代后, 尤其是近10 a来出现了加速趋势. 其原因除夏季气温升高外, 还有两个重要因素, 一是冰川温度升高造成冷储的减少, 二是冰川表面反射率下降导致辐射能量接收的增强. 冰川物质平衡在1986年之前由气温和降水共同决定, 之后主要受气温控制.
Current glacier recession under climate warming has drawn widely attention around the world. Initiated from 1958, the observations of Urümqi Glacier No. 1 at the headwaters of Urümqi River in eastern Tianshan promise the best datasets of glacier and climate changes in China. Taking Urümqi glacier No. 1 as an example, this paper has analyzed the response of the glacier to the climate change. The results show that during the past 50 years, remarkable changes occurred on the glacier, including snow-firn stratigraphy, glacial zone, glacial temperature (borehole temperature), glacier area, and glacier terminus position etc. These changes are found to be closely related to temperature rise in this area. The glacier retreat appears throughout the entire observed time period and shows accelerated tendency during the last 20 years, particularly after 1995. In addition to summer temperature increase, other two reasons may also be response to the acceleration of glacier melting: one is the glacial temperature rise, which may reduce the cold reserve in the glacier and thus increase the sensitivity of the glacier to air temperature rise; the other is the decrease of albedo on the glacier surface, which evidently enhance absorption of radiation. It is also found that commonly determined by both precipitation and temperature, the mass balance can be determined only by air temperature if the temperature rises up to a certain level, even under a heavy precipitation background. In addition, this paper has also discussed the predication of future change of the glacier.