The conventional view of Earth's emergence from the last ice age is that Northern Hemisphere terrestrial melt-water surged into the North Atlantic Ocean, causing slight warming. This was followed by a pause in the northward oceanic heat flux that led to a return of frigid conditions. Several such episodic warming and cooling events preceded the major warming that freed the planet from the frigid climate grip. At some point in this thermal see-saw, according to the prevailing theory, melt-water from the Antarctic ice sheet flooded the Antarctic Ocean and caused additional global changes. Kerr (2003) summarizes a report by Weaver et al. (2003) that suggests melt-water from the Antarctic continent may have been produced earlier than previously thought and may have initiated, rather than caused by, the warming in the North Atlantic Ocean.
References
Kerr, R. A., 2003: Who pushed whom out of the last ice age? Science, 299, 1645.
Weaver, A. J., O. A. Saenko, P. U. Clark, J. X. Mitrovica, 2003: Meltwater pulse 1A from Antarctica as a trigger of the Bolling-Allerod warm interval. Science, 299, 1709-1713.