Huemmrich discusses PACE’s OCI Data Regarding Worldwide Plant Health

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 16:46:23 -0400
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Fred Huemmrich (618/UMBC) recently co-authored a Remote Sensing paper titled “Unveiling PACE OCI’s hyperspectral terrestrial data products” with Skye Caplan (616/GSFC). The PACE satellite (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission) was launched on February 8, 2024, and the main goals were to obtain data about Earth’s oceans, to monitor plankton amounts, to study atmospheric conditions, and to understand various ecosystems. The three instruments onboard PACE are SPEXone, HARP2, and OCI. The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) “is the only instrument – in space or elsewhere – that provides hyperspectral coverage around the globe every one to two days,” stated in a recent NASA feature by Erica McNamee titled “NASA’s PACE Mission Reveals a Year of Terrestrial Data on Plant Health.”

Because of the OCI, scientists can view the “global dynamics of leaf pigments for the first time,” says Dr. Huemmrich. By applying the instrument’s capabilities to monitor plant health, the leaves’ pigments are highlighted in corresponding bright colors in visualizations. “Plants use these pigments to protect themselves from fluctuations in the weather, adapting to the environment through chemical changes in their leaves. … If they didn’t adjust their color, it would damage the mechanisms they have to perform photosynthesis,” writes Ms. McNamee. Applying PACE’s capabilities to terrestrial studies provides improved data on forest monitoring, crop health, and drought effects; in addition, the combination of the PACE data with NDVI data (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) provides an accurate assessment from space of vegetation and barren land throughout the world.

Dr. Huemmrich worked with the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on two related visualizations: “Leaf Year: Seeing Plants in Hyperspectral Color" and “Global Views of PACE Land Vegetation Data.” Through Dr. Huemmrich’s research and the corresponding visualizations, we learn how PACE and the OCI can be utilized to monitor plant health below the oceans’ surfaces as well as on land across the globe, and convey issues that may affect animal and human populations.