Predicting Food Shortages in the Horn of Africa

Smithsonian magazine published in its May 2015 edition a long article titled "The Sheltering Sky" by Ariel Sabar.     

While the article discusses the role of satellite imagery in the Horn of Africa to detect unusual spikes in land temperature, the main focus is Ethiopia and Gabriel Senay, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.  He designed a system that uses NASA satellites to identify anomalies that can signal crop failure.  Senay's algorithms plot these hot zones along a strip of the Rift Valley normally thought of as a breadbasket.