Pleistocene records of sedimentary carbonate from most of the Pacific Ocean have a strong 100-ky cyclicity, attributed for the most part to glacial-interglacial variation in carbonate dissolution. Pleistocene glacial intervals throughout the Pacific Ocean have high CaCO₃burial and preservation and accelerated dissolution in interglacial intervals. Records from the equatorial Pacific, Ontong Java Plateau, Shatsky Rise, and along the California continental margin all have this pattern, attributed to changes in corrosiveness of deep waters in the Pleistocene. Surprisingly, CaCO₃ records from the far NW Pacific near Kamchatka (ODP Site 882 and cores nearby) have high CaCO₃ during early interglacial intervals and no CaCO₃ in the glacials, opposite to the rest of the Pacific. We synthesise evidence to suggest that sea ice and/or low salinity surface waters over Site 882 impairs glacial carbonate production sufficiently so that no CaCO₃ is buried during glacial intervals. CaCO₃ is found in sediments at the beginnings of interglacial intervals, likely because of changes in surface CaCO₃ production as oceans reorganize and the Bering Strait opens to shunt sea ice and low salinity water north into the Arctic.  The deposition of CaCO₃, consistently associated with interglacial intervals at Site 882, implies that glacial sea ice and the associated low salinity surface layer was a factor affecting NW Pacific carbonate deposition during glacial-interglacial transitions throughout the Pleistocene.