As a consequence of global warming and an enhanced water cycle, the climate changed in northwest China, most notably in the Xinjiang area in the year 1987. Precipitation, glacial melt water and river runoff and air temperature increased continuously during the last decades, as did also the water level of inland lakes and the frequency of flood disasters. As a result, the vegetation cover is improved, number of days with sand-dust storms reduced. From the end of the 19th century to the 1970s, the climate was warm and dry, and then changed to warm and wet. The effects on northwest China can be classified into three classes by using the relation between precipitation and evaporation increase. If precipitation increases more than evaporation, runoff increases and lake water levels rise. We identify regions with: (1) notable change, (2) slight change and (3) no change. The future climate for doubled CO 2 concentration is simulated in a nested approach with the regional climate model-RegCM2. The annual temperature will increase by 2.7 • C and annual precipitation by 25%. The cooling effect of aerosols and natural factors will reduce this increase to 2.0 • C and 19% of precipitation. As a consequence, annual runoff may increase by more than 10%.

Three alternate China‐wide temperature composites covering the last 2000 years were established by combining multiple paleoclimate proxy records obtained from ice cores, tree rings, lake sediments and historical documents. Five periods of temperature variation can be identified: a warm stage in AD 0–240, a cold interval between AD 240 and 800, a return to warm conditions from AD 800–1400, including the Medieval Warm Period between AD 800–1100, the cool Little Ice Age period between 1400–1920, and the present warm stage since 1920. Regional temperature variation is found during AD 800–1100, when warm conditions occurred in Eastern China and in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau and in AD 1150–1380, when the southern Tibetan Plateau experienced a warm interval. In contrast, evidence for cool conditions during the LIA is more consistent among the proxy records. The temperature reconstructions for China and the Northern Hemisphere show good agreement over the past millennium.

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Following recommendations from the International Commission on Snow and Ice for a world glacier inventory, an inventory of glaciers in China was carried out by Chinese glaciologists from 1978 to 2002. Each glacier was measured from aerial photographs and topographical maps and 34 parameters recorded. These parameters were then analyzed statistically for the various river systems in China. Twelve volumes of the Glacier Inventory of China (GIC) have been published, consisting of 22 parts in 21 books. The data were subsequently abridged into a Concise GIC, published in Chinese (2005) and in English (2008), to make the glacier inventory more accessible and better adapted for assessing glacier response to climate change. After the GIC was completed, new aerial photographs became available and remote-sensing techniques became more common. To investigate glacier changes since completion of the first GIC, a second Glacier Inventory of China was initiated in 2007. This 5 year project, supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, will be undertaken mainly using remote-sensing techniques.

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