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NCSU Forecasting Model Could Help Fight War On Terrorism

POSTED: 5:05 p.m. EST January 21, 2002 UPDATED: 6:30 p.m. EST January 21, 2002

It may be hard to imagine that tobacco could help fight terrorism, but a forecasting model designed at North Carolina State University has caught the eye of U.S. government security officials.

A forecasting model designed at North Carolina State University to help farmers has caught the eye of U.S. government security officials.

N.C. State professor Charlie Main can forecast when and where spores of blue mold, a tobacco plant disease, may spread.

If Main's computer model can predict a plant disease floating across the countryside, could it also have applications for national defense?

"They think that these models -- the one we use and a number of others -- would serve well to show the distribution in the atmosphere of biological, bioaerosols, anything that was living in an aerosol and moving in the atmosphere," Main said.

If a terrorist uses an airborne disease, time would become extremely important. Knowing the areas infected would be critical. The trick, Main said, "is to get in front of the problem. If you can forecast the weather, you can forecast the dispersal."

Or after an attack, these same models can allow people to "go into a window in time and actually track backwards," which makes it possible to figure out when and where an incident occurred.

Main hopes this model will not be needed for anything but helping tobacco farmers get a head start on blue mold. The forecasting model is also being used to track some allergy-causing pollen, as well as other plant diseases.

The model can currently predict up to three to four days into the future.

Reporter:

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2002