Global warming has caused the shrinkage of most glaciers and ice caps in the world over the last century. For a number of glaciers, the rate of shrinkage appears to have accelerated in recent decades, and some of the glaciers are physically disappeared because of melting. This creates issues such as sea level rise and changes in water cycle have drawn a wideattention. To examine and project glacier change in future, World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) emphasizes ground-based individual glacier monitoring by all means, including glacier monitoring tower.

China has 46377 glaciers with a total area of 59425 km2. Glaciers in high mountains of arid and semiarid regions of central Asia and northwestern China are a vital source of water for more than 100 million people and for wildlife ecosystems. As a reference glacier in WGMS glacier monitoring network, Urumqi glacier No.1, located at the headwaters of Urumqi River in eastern Tianshan, central Asia is the only glacier that has been systematically observed on a regular basis with the longest data series (back to 1959) in China. To upgrade the observation of Urumqi glacier No.1, Tianshan Glaciological Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences established a glacier monitoring tower at terminus of the glacier with an altitude of 3800 m in November 2010.

This tower will become a platform of real-time observation and online data transmission for Urumqi Glacier No.1 monitoring after after equipped with three-dimensional photography, video camera, wireless data transmission, as well as other advanced glacier monitoring apparatus, introduces LI Zhongqin, director of Tianshan Glaciological Station and the Chinese National Correspondent of WGMS.