We have reconstructed a 1.46 million-year-long record of the upward flux of methane-influenced dissolved inorganic carbon to the seafloor on the northeast Indian continental margin. This upward migration was interrupted during three ~50,000 year-long intervals of time that coincided with glacial periods. We hypothesize that these three interruptions were caused by the formation of methane hydrates that impeded the upward migration of methane and that the hydrates formed as a result of bottom water cooling due to intrusion of a cold water mass from the southern hemisphere known as Glacial Antarctic Intermediate Water.