It sounds non-sensical but “global warming” could be contributing to the snowstorms like the one that hit Atlanta today.

Climate modelers have long predicted that much of the Eastern seaboard is likely to see more rain and snow over the next few years because warmer temperatures pull more moisture in the atmosphere that eventually will return to the ground as precipitation. It was to avoid confusion over such counterintuitive effects that scientists have taken in recent to referring to “global warming” as “climate change.”

Skeptical that this isn’t just a case of climate change believers covering their hides because of all the blizzards? There are plenty of climate scientists who were on record predicting more snow well before it fell.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program may be the most authoritative sources of this information. It’s the federal government’s roundup of climate research, which was last updated in June 2009. The report warns of increased snowfall in the “middle” and “upper” latitudes.

“As the Earth warms, more water evaporates from the oceans and lakes, eventually to fall as rain or snow,” the report says. “During the 20th century, annual precipitation has increased about 10% in the mid- and high-latitudes,”

A leading climate researcher at the University of Chicago said in February 2008 that his models showed much the same thing — at least for the next few decades.

“In the simulations I’ve analyzed, you can get some quite big blizzards up until the year 2040,” Raymond Pierrehumbert, professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago. “But between 2040 and 2080, it starts to get too warm to have much snow at all and it gradually sort of peters out.”

While few climate scientists will claim that any single weather event was caused by climate change, many have argued in recent days that East coast snows — much like Hurricane Katrina — are “consistent” with the kinds of events predicted by climate models. One such person was NBC “Science Guy” Bill Nye.

Fox News commentators and conservative radio hosts, including AJC columnist Neal Boortz, have had field day using the snowfall to mock climate scientists over climate change predictions. Here’s somebody who does a pretty good job of showing why those snow ballers are all yet.

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