Calling this winter a record setter for much of Canada. And today certainly played its part. In fact, St. John's has already been dumped with more than twice the snow. It usually gets all winter with more still on the way. And environment Canada says parts of Ontario are on track for an entire calendar month below zero for the first time in decades. So how is all this freezing a result of global warming? The CBC's Bargol McDermott explains. Another cold weather first today, 47 consecutive days of uninterrupted skating on the Rideau Canal. The longest stretch without a melt in its history. I'm not surprised as a record seeing how cold it's been for the entire month of February. This winter, the weather is all over the place, weirdly warm in the west, bone chilling everywhere east of Alberta. Temperatures in Ontario and Quebec are 10 degrees lower than normal. The great lakes are freezing over. We're up here very cold and blue. Meteorologist Peter Kimball blames the Gentsdream, high altitude wind currents that carry the weather with them. This year the Gentsdream has dipped further south the normal, dragging Arctic cold with it. And now it seems stuck. In living memory, it has never been this cold in February for most people for a long time. Of course, it's not unusual to have bitterly low temperatures. After all, it's February and this is Canada. But increasingly, scientists think there is a link between these long stretches of below normal temperatures and climate change. New research in the US shows the rapidly warming Arctic could be affecting the Gentsdream. The Gentsdream relies on the difference between cold and warm temperatures to keep it moving quickly around the world. But scientists believe that as the Arctic warms that crucial contrast is disappearing. So as the Arctic warms so fast, that temperature difference is getting smaller. And when it gets smaller, there's less force driving the winds of the Gentsdream. Francis says her new research shows instead of a straight line, the Gentsdream now loops north and south, and it's slowing down. That means weather patterns get stuck for longer than normal, resulting in the cold now hanging over eastern North America. That means that the weather that we are experiencing is going to become more persistent. It's going to seem like it's stuck in place and not changing very fast. Scientists are looking more closely at the connection with climate change, but they say expect more unpredictable winters like this one. And though spring is less than a month away, it's cold comfort to half of the country, still braving the depths of winter. Margamy-Dermond, CBC News, Ottawa.