Resolute (Jul 03/06) - North America and Nunavut are in for the warmest summers on record, according to a 20-year-veteran Resolute forecaster who has developed a novel way of predicting weather.

Wayne Davidson, who mans the Environment Canada station in Canada's second most northern community, bases his predictions on the sun - a method he claims can outshine the best climate models around.

"The results are uncontestable. This summer will be much warmer than usual," Davidson said..

The science behind his predictions is complicated, but the methodology is quite simple. His forecasts are based on the size of the sun - or at least how large the solar system's biggest fireball looks from Earth.

Air masses in the upper atmosphere play with light before it reaches the surface, changing the sun's apparent size. The warmer the air, the bigger the sun will look and vice versa.

That upper atmosphere air will eventually affect weather on the surface, making it possible to predict temperatures months into the future, Davidson said.

The method, though, is still far from being universally accepted. Davidson began making predictions in 2003, but the southern scientific community has been slow to adopt his theory.

"What I'm doing is new, so there is a great deal of hesitation," said the Montreal native.

Davidson makes his observations with a small commercial telescope and digital camera.

In February, he predicted the spring in the Northern hemisphere would be warmer than last year and several areas across North America - including Nunavut - basked in record warmth. Last fall, he said the winter of 2005-2006 would be the hottest ever in the Northern hemisphere, a prophecy that came true. In fact, Arctic temperatures were 5C to 12C degrees warmer than average last January, according to NASA.

But perhaps most remarkably, Davidson surmised the summer of 2004 would the fourth warmest in North America, a prediction that was spot on.

Since he began making predictions in 2003, Davidson says he is almost perfect.

Those observations, though, have been troubling. The relative heat wave indicates that North American is already in the grip of global warming, Davidson said.

Davidson gained international notoriety in 2004 and 2005 when he observed another curious Arctic phenomenon, dubbed atmospheric inversion.

He theorized warm weather above the Earth's surface was reflecting light from beyond the horizon, making Northern nights seems brighter.

The science confirmed what many Inuit had observed for nearly a decade: Arctic days are getting longer.

That experience illustrates that one scientist, even in a remote outpost like Resolute, can break new climatological ground, Davidson said.