Abstract: The vertical distribution of climate change is an important aspect of climate research.The observations of meteorological stations at 6 different sea level elevations along the meridional cross-section in the central part of northern Tianshan Mountains slope are used to study the interannual climate changes of the desert/oasis to alp ice/snow climatic zones changing with heights in winter,summer and around the year.Compared with the previous 30 years(1961-1990),the increments of mean temperature and annual precipitation are nonlinear functions of height and they are larger in winter than in summer at all elevations in 1990s(1991-2000);The increment of annual precipitation is relatively larger in the oasis belt at high elevation in front of the mountain and the mountain region at a height of 3 500 m other than in the low elevations near desert.Additionally,the change tendencies of the climate factors such as temperature,precipitation,relative humidity and evaporation etc.are analyzed and the linear tendencies are compared at different elevations.The vertical distributions of climate change in the oasis edge to mountain ice/snow regions revealed that the changes of mean temperature have rising tendency at all elevations;in front of the mountain and in the high elevation areas the precipitation increment is relatively larger,evaporation decreases and relative humidity increases.

Key words: climate change, desert, oasis, climatic zones