The North-GRIP ice core provides continuous records of sea salt and mineral dust aerosols from the last glacial period. A large number of soluble ions were analysed by ion chromatography and have opened up for new possibilities looking into details in the relationship between ion composition and climate conditions. Changes in ion compositions seem to be related to changes in particle size distributions as an effect of fractionation during long-range atmospheric transport.Analysis of ion-compositions in the North-GRIP ice core suggests that long-range atmospheric transport patterns remained nearly unchanged during the Dansgaard/Oeschger events and were constant through most of the last glacial period. However in sections of the early part of the last glacial period the analysis shows a prominently different pattern of ion composition. These differences are associated with differences in particle size distributions and indicate major differences in circulation patterns during the early part of the last glacial period.