Marcelo Barreiro, a young climate scientist from Uruguay whose research interests range from palaeoclimates to ocean-atmosphere interactions, was honoured at a ceremony at ICTP as the recipient of the 2009 ICTP Prize.

"I am humbled by the receipt of this prize. I first visited ICTP 10 years ago, thanks to funding from the Centre, which makes it easy for scientists from developing countries to visit Trieste," said Barreiro.

Barreiro, who is an associate professor and head of the Atmospheric Sciences Unit, School of Sciences, Universidad de la República in Uruguay, won the ICTP Prize in recognition of his “contributions in the field of tropical Atlantic variability, and the exploration of dynamical mechanisms to explain the palaeo-climatic record in the last few million years”. The results of his investigations have important implications for seasonal forecasting and the climate change debate.

Barreiro has been a speaker at ICTP training activities in the field of the physics of weather and climate since 2005.

The ICTP Prize, created in 1982 by the ICTP Scientific Council, recognizes outstanding and original contributions in physics and mathematics by young scientists (under40) from developing countries. This year's prize was given in honour of Edward Lorenz, an American meteorologist and a pioneer of chaos theory, who had a large influence on Barreiro. "It was after reading Lorenz's papers that I became interested in climate studies," explained the ICTP Prize winner.

For more information, visit the ICTP Prize website.