Records of methane sulfonate (MS^-) in ice cores from the high plateau of Dronning Maud Land (DML), Antarctica, drilled in the framework of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, are investigated for their potential as an environmental and climate archive for the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. Despite postdepositional changes, years of extraordinary MS^- concentrations can be clearly detected in the ice core records. We use composite anomaly maps of atmospheric parameters from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis fields for years of extreme MS^- concentration to detect atmospheric patterns causing MS^- variability. Changing atmospheric transport is shown to be an important, but not exclusive, parameter being conserved in the MS^- record in DML. The often hypothesized direct link between high MS^- concentrations and El Niño events is not supported for the observed region whereas the Antarctic Dipole (ADP), which is modulated by El Niño-Southern Oscillation conditions, exerts significant influence. A clear 13.9-year cycle can be found throughout a 2000-year MS^- record that can be related to variations in the ADP. Over the last 300 years a 4.6-year cycle is revealed in the MS^- (and sea-salt record), which vanishes in the deeper part of the ice core as a consequence of diffusion processes. From the long-term perspective, periods of high MS^- concentrations are connected to, on average, higher sea-salt aerosol as well, reflecting a seasonally independent influence of transport on both species. A distinctive period of efficient atmospheric transport, probably due to a pronounced ADP, could be found from 1200 to 1600 A.D. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.