High Mountain Glaciers''ELAO and Climate
山地冰川物质平衡线与气候

The authors of present paper deal with the implication of the equilibrium line altitude (ELAO) of glacier for environment and review the methods of its identification so far within China and abroad. Finally the authors identified the ELAO for the present No.1 glacier in the U-rumqi glacier valley, Tianshan Mts, China, by determining its maximum elevation of lateral moraines (MELM), based on their field observations in recent years and a study of great amount of the related data surveyed since 1960. As a result, the authors revised the formula for the relationship between the present ELAO and climate. This formula is then applied to characterize the glacier in the stage of second glacier advance during the Little Ice Age and hence the results of semi-quantified presumption of climate prior to about 250a B.P. are obtained.