Improved understanding of the drivers of climate variability, particularly over the last millennium, and its influence on Antarctic ice melt have important implications for projecting ice sheet resilience in a changing climate. Here, we investigated the variability in Antarctic climate and sea ice extent during the last millennium (850–1850 CE) by comparing paleoenvironmental reconstructions with simulations from the Community Earth System Model Last Millennium Ensemble (CESM-LME). Atmospheric and oceanic response to external forcing in CESM-LME simulations typically take the form of an Antarctic dipole: cooling over most of Antarctica and warming east of the Antarctic Peninsula. This configuration is also observed in ice core records. Unforced variability and a dipole response to large volcanic eruptions contribute to weaker cooling in the Antarctic than the Arctic, consistent with the absence of a strong volcanic signal in Antarctic ice core records. The ensemble does not support a clear link between the dipole pattern and baseline shifts in the Southern Annular Mode and El Niño-Southern Oscillation proposed by some paleoclimate reconstructions. Our analysis provides a point of comparison for paleoclimate reconstructions and highlights the role of internal climate variability in driving modeled last millennium climate evolution in the Antarctic.