Climate change in Antarctica is neither geographically uniform nor synchronous. This paper presents new data from Maxwell Bay, a wide-open bay in the
South Shetland Islands. Combined with other records from the area, we found a prominent expression of the
Medieval Climate Anomaly and the
Little Ice Age, associated with strong variability in westerly winds, which affect the presence of sea ice and the inflow of open ocean water. Studies like this help us to understand how climate is controlled in still understudied polar areas.