A long glacier mass balance record analysis in Chinese Urumqi Glacier No. 1 and the relationships with changes in large-scale circulations

The 57 years of annual and seasonal mass balance records from observed mass balance made by the Tienshan Glaciological Station on Urumqi Glacier No. 1 (UG 1), Tienshan Mountains, showed a detailed understanding of the spatial and temporal variability that reflect changes in the UG1 at regional scales. Glacier mass balances of UG1 showed negatively decreasing and accelerated mass loss since 1960. There were 42 negative mass balance years and 15 positive mass balance years during 1960–2016. The abrupt change analysis showed from the year of 1993 with a shift to more negative balance. UG 1 is in the anomalous anticyclone edge zone, and this has facilitated the inter-decadal increase in summer precipitation over the Tienshan Mountains. Judged from the values of correlation coefficients and spatial distribution of all the stations in Xinjiang, mass balance change of UG1 appears to be controlled mainly through air temperature variations. While analysis shows that high correlation of mass balances of UG1 with EA/WR which indicated that the mass balance variability of UG1 is closely related to global climate phenomena.