Distribution and features of the glaciers' ELAs and the decrease of ELAs during the Last Glaciation in China

The Qinghai-Xizang plateau and its bordering mountains is a special geographical unit in the low and middle latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, it has widest plateau and many peaks higher than 8000 m a. s.l. This special geographical unit is a large center of modern glaciation, behind the polar regions (the Antarctica and the Greenland), making China to be a largest glacier country in the low and middle latitudes on our planet. The main feature of the modern equilibrium line altitude (ELA) is latitudinal zonality, increasing about 150 m per degree from 49 N to 28 N. Moreover, the ELA appears asymmetric rings on the plateau. According to the reconstructed map of ELAs during last glaciation, and considering the palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment, it is very clear that there were no glaciers developed on the mountains with peaks less than 2000 m in eastern China during Quaternary.