Earth Sciences
WANG Yuming
WANG Yuming, born in Changzhou City Jiangsu Province in 1976, is a professor of physics in the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He received a B.S. in physics in 1999, and a Ph.D. in geophysics in 2003 from the USTC. After graduating, he took a faculty position of associate professor at the same university in 2004, and was promoted full professor in the end of 2005. He now serves as a committee member on Space Physics in Chinese Society of Space Research (CSSR) and also a committee member on Space Weather in Chinese Geophysical Society (CGS). Yuming is working in the field of solar-terrestrial physics and space weather, and has made significant contributions, especially to the geoeffectiveness of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). He proposed the concept of multiple-magnetic-cloud structure in the interplanetary space, discovered the east-west asymmetric distribution of the solar source locations of Earth-directed CMEs, established a theoretical model of the CME deflected propagation and an inversion model of CME internal (thermo)dynamics, and improved the method for estimating the strength of coronal shocks. He has got more than 40 papers published in various international journals, which have been widely cited. On his notable achievements, Yuming received numerous honors and awards, including the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2004, the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award of China in 2005, the Fu Chengyi Award for Outstanding Young Scientists by CGS in 2009, the Young Faculty Achievement Award by USTC Alumni Foundation in 2011 and the China Youth Science and Technology Award in 2011. He was elected in the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University in 2004, top 10 Outstanding Youths of Jianghuai in 2008, the Project for New Century Hundred, Thousand and Ten-Thousand Talents - State Level Candidates in 2009. Yuming is the PI of many projects funded by NSF, MOST and MOE of China. He won the NSFC fund for distinguished young scholars in 2005.
Geoeffectiveness of Coronal Mass Ejections
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the most important driving source of severe space weather events. In the current circumstances of vigorously developing space activities, how to predict the space weather effects of a CME is of great significance in the aspects of forecasting the status of space environment and providing the guarantee of space environment safety. This project studies on the CMEs' solar surface source regions, propagation and evolution in corona and heliosphere, and resultant geoeffectiveness through both observational and theoretical approaches, and made some important achievements. (1) Discovered the east-west asymmetric distribution of the solar source locations of Earth-directed CMEs, which suggests that CMEs originating from west hemisphere is more likely to encounter and affect the Earth. (2) Established the only kinetic model to describe the deflected propagation of CMEs in the interplanetary space, which has the promising application in the prediction of space weather. (3) For the first time found and confirm the existence of multiple-magnetic-cloud structures in the interplanetary space. (4) Systematically studied the interactions of CMEs through observational analysis, theoretical modeling, and numerical simulations, and pointed out such a kind of interplanetary complex structures are probably of significant geoeffectiveness. These results firm the basis of developing reliable prediction models of space weather.