It has made my lifelong career a success - the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in the eyes of Yao Tandong, Director of the Tibetan Plateau Research Institute
“The glacier career is a heroic career and a brave one. career." Yao Tandong has a deep understanding of this famous saying of academician Shi Yafeng, his mentor and "the father of modern Chinese glaciers". He told reporters that the so-called hardships are indeed nothing in the eyes of glaciologists. "For them, especially young scholars, having a working platform to display their talents and carry out scientific innovation is what everyone dreams of."
When they need it most, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars works for Yao Tandong Ice core research sets up a platform
Yao Tandong became associated with glaciers in 1975. In his first class at the university, Mr. Shi Yafeng’s description of the Bartola Glacier expedition left a deep impression on him. Yao Tandong has been fascinated by glacier research ever since.
In 1989, Yao Tandong, who had been a postdoctoral fellow in France and the United States for two years, returned to China. After his lobbying, Professor Thomson, an American expert who was originally prepared to retain him with a high salary, finally came to China with him to conduct ice core research on the Tibetan Plateau as a partner.
“When support was most needed, I, together with 48 other young academic leaders, became the first batch of recipients of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.” Yao Tandong said with emotion, “This money is really too much. It is precious, and every minute has been used wisely. We purchased urgently needed equipment and initially established a scientific research platform for ice core research." In the following 10 years, with the help of this platform, he has presided over more than 20 scientific research projects, including the National Eighth Five-Year Plan and the Ninth Five-Year Plan for Climbing, the National Key Basic Research Plan, and the Major Projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research results won the third and fourth prizes of the National Natural Science Award. Prizes such as the first prize of the Natural Science Award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and national invention patents.
An influential innovative group in the field of ice core research was formed
When Yao Tandong was funded by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, he was the leader of the ice core and cold regions The environmental research group has only three researchers and two technical staff.
“The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars provides a powerful hematopoietic function for the development of the ice core research community. It not only guarantees funding, but more importantly, it provides a platform for the research team to strengthen international cooperation and strive for more benefits from society. Large amounts of funding provide a supporting platform," Yao Tandong said.
Seizing this opportunity and the international ice core research hotspot, the research group led by Yao Tandong has made great progress, the level of scientific research has continued to improve, and the team has grown step by step.
Today, the original glacier research group has developed into one with Yao Tandong as the academic leader, including Wang Ninglian, director of the Cryosphere Research Office, He Yuanqing, doctoral supervisor, Liu Shiyin, a candidate for the "Light of the West", and "Ten Scholars" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. An echelon-type research group including 22 young scholars including Sun Junying, the winner of "Outstanding Women". These outstanding young scholars from geography, atmosphere, remote sensing, geology, chemistry, computers and many other majors cooperate with each other and learn from each other's strengths. They have undertaken 15 National Natural Science Foundation-funded projects and are currently undertaking 8 National Natural Science Foundation projects. They have become A new force in research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Looking back on the road traveled, Yao Tandong feels gratified. After years of hard work, Yao Tandong and his scientific research team have achieved world-class results in the research on ice cores and global change, glacier changes and cold zone environment. A research direction with distinctive characteristics has been formed. They successfully conducted research on the Dunde ice core, Guriya ice core, and Puruogangri ice core in the Qilian Mountains, pushing China's ice core research into a new stage; they established stable oxygen isotopes and precipitation time in precipitation in High Asia. The quantitative model of temperature relationship has corrected the theoretical model speculations of Western scholars; the high-resolution ice core records have clarified the climate change characteristics of the Tibetan Plateau over the past 100,000 years, revealing a series of major climate change events in the past recorded by ice cores; It reveals the climate change characteristics recorded in ice cores since the Holocene, and reveals the climate changes in the past 2000 years with the resolution of inter-annual changes.
Currently, as the chief scientist of the "Muztag Scientific Experimental Research" in the "Preliminary Research Project of Major Basic Research Projects" of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Yao Tandong is presiding over the major research program "Western China Environment" of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. and ecological science".
Looking back on this, Yao Tandong felt gratified, "The country supported us in the most difficult time. It should be said that we did not let everyone down."