Abstract: The glacier change can affect human survival and socio-economic development.Therefore,how to improve dynamic monitoring of glacier change is especially important.This paper took the glaciers in Hal Rick Mountain,east Tianshan Mountains,China as the study object.The number of glaciers and the boundary,area,elevation and exposure of each glacier and the changes in those aspects were investigated using the ratio threshold method and visual interpretation based on ASTER-GDEM and Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI remotely sensed data from 1992,2002,2010 and 2016.Meanwhile,the climate data in the surrounding area were analyzed using linear regression to understand the relationship between glacier and climate change.A relationship between perimeter and area was established using the fractal theory,and we calculated the fractal dimension and the spatial structure stability index of the glaciers by linear regression analysis.According to the stability index,the basic characteristics of the glacier change from 1992 to 2016 in the Hal Rick Mountain were analyzed and a preliminary forecast of glacier change trend in the future was given.The results show that the glacier areas in the region was decreased by 13.18% from 1992 to 2016,the average annual recession rate was 0.56%.The glaciers recession rate had been slowed down in the last few years.The estimated ice reserves had been fallen by 18.33% in the past 25 years which signals an alarm on the region[JP8]'[JP]s water supply.The recession ratios and the scales of the glaciers showed an exponential function distribution trend in general with an obvious rising tendency for those glaciers of low altitude. The smaller glaciers displayed bigger recession rates than the larger glaciers.The glaciers on the northeastern slope have the bigger recession rates while those on the northern slope,the smaller recession rates..The characteristics of the spatial structure of the glaciers were analyzed based on the fractal theory which indicated that the recession of the glaciers will tend to be stable in the future.The glacier change is a response to the remarkable rise of the temperature and increase of sunshine duration.The annual precipitation showed an downward trend which had not compensated the mass loss of water resource caused by the glacier recession.It may become a threat in the summer when the decreased runoff leads to water shortage for household water consumption in the areas of low altitudes.

Key words: Hal Rick Mountain, glacier change, remote sensing, fractal theory