Glaciers constitute the most important fresh water resources in the world. However,they are reputed to be among the most sensitive indicators to climate change. In arid and semiarid areas,glacier changes affect considerably people's livelihood and the means of production and even alter the ecology and environment. Therefore,research on the development of glacier changes is of great significance for sustainable development in arid and semiarid areas. Based on remote sensing data (Landsat TM and ETM +) acquired during the period of 1990-2015,in this study the NDSI and the threshold method were used to analyze the glacier changes in the Bogda and Karlik regions in combination with longitudinal precipitation and temperature data and to evaluate the different responses of the typical glaciers in the eastern Tianshan Mountains to climate change over the past 25 years. The results show that: ① The glaciers in both the Bogda and Karlik regions were in a shrinkage in accordance with the changes in precipitation and temperature; ② The glacier area change in these two regions had an increased volatility on the southeast slope but did not at other slope aspects; ③ The fastest glacial shrinkage occurred on the eastern slope in the Bogda region but on the northeastern slope in the Karlik region; ④ According to the analyzed results of the grid meteorological data in recent 40 or 50 years,the shrinkage rate of glacier area in the Bogda region was higher than that in the Karlik region,and the precipitation increase affected the glacier shrinkage was not significant in the Bogda region,but the precipitation increase restricted obviously the glacier shrinkage in the Karlik region; ⑤ Through the analysis of the Person correlation between the glacier area and the mean annual temperature and precipitation on different slope aspects in the Bogda and Karlik regions,the results revealed that the correlation between glacier area and precipitation was very low. However,the correlation coefficient between the glacier area and the regional temperature on the north,northeast and southeast slopes in the Bogda region was high,and the correlation coefficient between the glacier area and the regional temperature on the southeastern and northeastern slopes in the Karlik region was high and significant. The analyzed results also revealed that,at the annual scale,the glacier shrinkage in these two regions was mainly caused by the temperature increase,and the precipitation increase did not slow down the glacier shrinkage.