This volume summarizes the present knowledge on the various ways in which continental ice and sea ice both respond to, and in turn control, climate system evolution. As this field is interdisciplinary, the contributions come from glaciologists, physical oceanographers, atmospheric general circulation modellers, experts on the reconstruction of past climates using data from ice cores, paleoceanographers and palynologists. The focus is on the thermohaline circulation: the influence of the deep circulation of the oceans upon the long time scale oscillation of planetary climate.