Obama-mania is stretching as far south as Antarctica. Scientists aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, have named their temporary research stop ‘Ocean Station Obama’.

For three days, this Obama will play host to a range of oceanographic studies, from deploying plankton nets to sending out an underwater glider. It’s all part of a long-term ecological study, which for the past 17 years has returned annually to study climate, oceanography and marine ecosystems in the same 200-by-500-kilometre region. (See the cruise blog here.)

Doug Martinson of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, chief scientist for the cruise, sent out an update announcing the new Station Obama this morning. “We are excited to celebrate the Inauguration,” Martinson says. “The project scientists have decided to dedicate the station to President Obama and his administration to recognize their vital interest in the problem of climate change.”

While the team is missing the excitement in Washington – the inaugural parade is shortly to pass just a block from Nature’s DC offices – they have plenty of interesting company of their own. Some of the research team have decamped from the Gould and are staying instead on nearby Avian Island, where they will count penguins “and other seabirds that forage in the Obama region”.

Image: Jon Higdon, from the cruise website