Background, aim, and scope The Northern Xinjiang is one of the most important industrial and agricultural production area in northwest China, which belongs to arid and semi-arid regions. However, as a result of extremely fragile ecological environment and sensitive to climate change, lots of researchers focus on its environment change. The occurrence of extreme weather events showed more frequency and intensity in the background of global climate change, the loss of life and property of people will be greater than before. But the existing researches on extreme climate change in this region mainly focus on the temporal and spatial variation characteristics of extreme weather events, less researches on the influence factors of extreme weather events especially the influence of atmospheric circulation index, that disadvantage to accurately predict the occurrence of extreme weather events. Materials and methods Based on meteorological stations in Northern Xinjiang, 1960 2012 calendar year, daily air temperature data downloaded from National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, and atmospheric circulation index (including Arctic Oscillation index, North Atlantic Oscillation index, El Nino and the Southern Oscillation) from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division (NOAA-ESRL: PSD), using linear regression analysis, moving average, principal component analysis, correlation analysis and Inverse Distance Weighted to analyze the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of extreme temperature changes in Northern Xinjiang and investigate the relationship between the extreme temperature index and atmospheric circulation index. Results The results showed that annual mean minimum temperature and annual mean maximum temperature displayed significant positive trend at rate of 0.49℃ ·(10a)~(-1), 0.22℃ ·(10a)~(-1), respectively, while diurnal temperature range displayed negative trend at rates of 0.27℃ ·(10a)~(-1); indices of warm temperature extremes growing season length, warm nights, highest of the daily minimum temperature and tropical nights displayed significant positive trend at rate of 2.52 d ·(10a)~(-1), 3.18℃ ·(10a)~(-1), 0.45℃ ·(10a)~(-1) and 1.14 d ·(10a)~(-1), respectively; while warm days, summer days and highest of the daily maximum temperature showed non-significant positive trend at rate of 1.24 d · (10a)~(-1), 1.58 d ·(10a)~(-1) and 0.09℃·(10a)~(-1), respectively. The cold temperature extremes frost days, ice days, cold nights and cold days displayed negative trend at rate of -3.70 d · (10a)~(-1), -1.46 d · (10a)~(-1), -3.41 d · (10a)~(-1) and -1.26 d · (10a)~(-1), while lowest temperature of the daily minimum and lowest temperature of the daily maximum showed non-significant positive trend at rate of 0.57℃ ·(10a)~(-1) and 0.26℃ ·(10a)~(-1). The results of Inverse Distance Weighted method showed, the indices of diurnal temperature range, all the cold extremes and mostly warm extremes have larger trend magnitudes in regional of southeastern of Altai Mountains and Yili Valley area.