The occurrence of ice-free conditions in the Nordic seas during the Last Glacial Maximum has been demonstrated using microfossil and biomarker approaches. An accurate picture of the prevailing oceanographic conditions may be more difficult to ascertain. Thus, uncertainties for most proxies increase at the cold extreme of temperature calibrations and glacial sediments contain small amounts of microfossils and biomarkers. Here we discuss sea surface temperature estimates derived from alkenone indices for the Last Glacial Maximum in the Nordic seas that provide a surprising scenario, where surface temperatures were warmer than at present. We conclude that the UK37' and UK37 estimates may not be interpreted in terms of sea surface temperature as several factors may have conspired to bias the molecular signal. However, using an alternative index based on the abundance of the C37:4 alkenone, we estimate a maximum temperature of 6 ¿C. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union