The strength and position of surface and deep currents in the slope water south of Newfoundland are thought to vary as a coupled system in relation to the dipole in atmospheric sea level pressure known as the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO). Paleoceanographic data from the Laurentian Fan, used as a proxy for sea surface temperature, reveal that surface slope waters north of the Gulf Stream experienced warming during the Little Ice Age of the 16th to 19th centuries and support the notion of an NAO-driven coupled system. The NAO may be a useful model for millennial-scale ocean variability during interglacial climate states.