Climatic data, ice core records, the tree ring index, and recorded glacier variations have been used to reconstruct a history of climatic and glacial changes in the monsoonal temperate glacier region of southwestern China during the last 400 years. The region's temperature has increased in a fluctuating manner during the twentieth century after two cold stages of the Little Ice Age (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries), with a corresponding retreat of most of the glaciers, against a background of global warming. Retreat rates accelerated after the 1980s. The few advancing glaciers that did exist have started to retreat in recent years. The amount, trend, and amplitude of variation of precipitation have differed in different parts of the region. The Dasuopu ice core, from the western part of the region, shows a decreasing trend in precipitation, the converse of the trend in temperature. In the eastern part of the region, however, a rising trend of rainfall has accompanied increasing temperatures as a result of the variable atmospheric circulations from different sources. The southwest monsoon, the principal controlling factor in the Chinese monsoonal temperate glacier region, can be classified into the Indian monsoon and the Bengal monsoon. The former passes across the Indian Peninsula from the Arabian Sea and transports vapor for precipitation in the western part of the monsoonal temperate glacier region. The Bengal monsoon, originating in the Bay of Bengal, is the major source of precipitation in the eastern part of the region. The eastern part is also influenced by the southeast monsoon arriving from the western Pacific, and the western part is affected in winter by the southern branch of the westerly circulation. This complex atmospheric situation results in differing patterns of precipitation in the western and eastern zones. Although it is clear that both temperature and precipitation affect the glaciers, further work is needed to confirm which of these is the major factor influencing present glacier change. Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union.