Remarkable correlation exists between warm water, poleward winds over the ocean, and low sea ice concentrations and extents over the winter sea ice pack around Antarctica, even to the point of continuing patterns across the ice-sea boundary. Since the wind stress associated with poleward wind is expected to compact the ice during sea ice edge retraction, we conclude that the memory of the Antarctic circumpolar wave in the sea ice pack is carried from one austral winter to the next by the neighboring water temperatures since the sea ice pack retracts nearly to Antarctica in austral summer. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union