Initiation of CMEs: A review

Abstract Solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are a striking manifestation of solar activity seen in the solar corona, which bring out coronal plasma as well as magnetic flux into the interplanetary space and may cause strong interplanetary disturbances and geomagnetic storms. Understanding the initiation of CMEs and forecasting them are an important topic in both solar physics and geophysics. In this paper, we review recent progresses in research on the initiation of CMEs. Several initiation mechanisms and models are discussed. No single model/simulation is able to explain all the observations available to date, even for a single event.