The invention discloses an adaptive control method for a spectrograph applicable to a cold environment and relates to an automatic control technology. The adaptive control method comprises the following steps: 1) roughly measuring the intensity of incident light; 2) determining an overall output maximum value of the spectrograph; 3) decomposing overall output of the spectrograph; 4) determining the best exposure time top of the spectrograph; and 5) carrying out adaptive measurement on the spectrograph, setting the exposure time of the spectrograph as top, and carrying out measurement. The adaptive control method disclosed by the invention has the beneficial effects that by virtue of a way of estimating the intensity of the incident light and automatically regulating the exposure time, the spectrograph can be automatically adaptive to variation of external environment temperature and light field intensity, especially in a severe cold environment, the adaptive measurement is carried out, and measurement errors, caused by temperature variation, of devices are reduced, so that a satisfying measurement result is obtained.