The change of glaciers is an indicator of the climatic and environmental change. Glaciers all over the world shrank in the past decades, except a very few of which spread out. Otherwise, the extremely cold environment limits the scientific research on the glaciers. With the emergence of the remote sensing technology, the innovation age of the research on glaciers has arrived. 

It is shown that most glaciers in the world experienced a general reduction in area due to climate warming in recent decades. Glaciers in headwaters of the Yangtze River in the central-northeast part of Qinghai-Xizang Plateau are mainly distributed in the north-oriented slopes of Mt. Tanggula and Mt. Sedir and the south-oriented slopes of Mt. Kunlun.  

It was found that most glaciers in the headwaters were in a retreat. In general, Glaciers were retreated by 108.3 m in average, and an area of 68.13 km² was lost, accounting for 5.3% of the total glacier area. There was a significant difference in glacier change rate among the Mt. Tanggula, Mt. Sedir and Mt. Kunlun. Shrinkage of area of the glaciers was 12.9% in the Mt. Sedir, 4.3% in the Mt. Tanggula, and 8.3% in the Mt. Kunlun respectively.  

The results of glacier change in the Geladandong Peak area in multi-periods showed that the reduction of glacier area was the most significant during 1969-1973, about -1.16 km²•a^-1, and the glacier area was enlarged by 0.59 km²•a^-1 during 1973-2002.  

However, the reduction of glacier area was accelerated after 2002 with a change rate of -0.95km²•a^-1. Generally, the larger the glacier area was, the lower the glacier change rate would be. According to the statistical analysis, there was a decreasing logarithm relationship (R²=0.91) between the glacier area and the area reduction rate in the study area. The meteorological data observed by Zhiduo, Tuotuohe and Wudaoliang Glacier meteorological stations revealed that the retreat of glaciers in this area may be mainly caused by the increase of air temperature in warm season, and the different extent of temperature increase may be one of the reasons resulting in the different glacier change rate among the Mts. Tanggula, Mt. Sedir and Mt. Kunlun. 

This program is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41271090, 41001039, 41071047), International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Project of China (2010DFA92720-23), Special Project of Scientific and Technological Foundational Work of MOST (2013FY111400), Special Project of Strategic Leading Science and Technology (XDA05090302). This paper has been published on the Journal of Arid Zone Research, Vol. 30, No.5, Sep. 2013.