We present the first detailed study of regional and secular changes in accumulation rate from northern Greenland. Four 100–150 m ice cores from this previously little investigated region have been dielectrically profiled and a good chronology for all four ice cores established by modelling the density profiles and identifying volcanic peaks in the records. This made it possible to calculate the accumulation rates of each core. The current accumulation rates show that there is a large region of low accumulation rate to the northeast of central Greenland with drops in accumulation rate of 25% 150 km, and 50% 300 km from Summit.Relatively large variations in accumulation rate over time are seen in all the cores. We have compared the resulting accumulation-rate record, which should be related to changes in local air temperature over northern Greenland, with Scandinavian tree-ring records and have interpreted the data as showing an early Medieval Warm Epoch, but no pronounced “Little Ice Age” and no unequivocal greenhouse warming effect as yet in northern Greenland.