Satellite images reveal drought potential

BOULDER — Alexander Goetz is looking to the sky to find out what’s happening on Earth.

Goetz, director of the Center for the Study of Earth from Space at the University of Colorado, and a team of researchers are exploring ways to assess how future climate changes could affect the High Plains region.

More than 10 percent of the High Plains, some 100,000 square kilometers (62,000 square miles), including parts of Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, is made up of sand dunes and sand sheets, which natural…