Climatic variability arising from the coupling between ocean temperature and sea-ice extent is studied in a spatially distributed system. A spatial degree of freedom is crudely introduced by the coupling, through energy transfer, of two "box models" each of which describes a different space region. The evolution equations are cast into a normal form and some qualitative features of this general class of models are predicted. It is shown, both analytically and numerically, that internally generated complexity in the form of aperiodic behaviour can be a natural consequence of spatially distributed systems.