The relation between low-frequency interactions between sea ice and ocean in the North Atlantic is explored with an ocean and sea ice model coupled to a simple, energy and moisture conserving atmosphere model. We implement a new sea ice model to better simulate ocean-atmosphere heat exchange. High-lights of the sea ice model include multiple categories of sea ice, heat transfer which depends explicitly on brine pocket interfacial melting and accumulated snowfall, and ice motion and deformation which evolve according to the elastic-viscous plastic rheology. With annually periodic wind stress and solar forcing, the coupled atmosphere, sea ice, ocean model responds with no substantial interannual variability. However, the model simulates significant decadal variability when the wind field includes interannually varying fluctuations at high latitudes (north of 60 degrees) and over the North Atlantic Ocean. Multiple thousand year integrations are performed using synthetic stochastic wind forcing based on observed spatial patterns of variability from empirical orthogonal functions and expansion coefficients computed from a random process. We examine decadal variability in the meridional overturning circulation in the Atlantic Ocean as a result of coupled interactions in the system. Sensitivity experiments are performed to determine separately the influence of the stochastic winds on the surface heat flux and wind stress.