Background
The authors state that "an understanding of the patterns of past storminess is particularly important in the context of future anthropogenically driven climate change," especially in light of "predictions of increased storm frequency ... by the end of the current century." Hence, they say that "a long-term proxy-based record of storminess, extending back into the Holocene, would provide ... a firmer foundation for future predictions."

What was done
Clarke and Rendell reviewed evidence for storm activity across the North Atlantic region derived from instrumental records and archival evidence of storm impacts, comparing the information thereby obtained with sedimentological and chronological evidences of sand movement and dune building along western European coasts.

What was learned
The two UK researchers determined that "the most notable Aeolian sand drift activity was concentrated in the historic period 0.5-0.1 ka (AD 1500-1900) which spans the Little Ice Age." And they say that "within this period, low solar activity, during the Maunder (AD 1645-1715) and Dalton (AD 1790-1830) Minima, has been related to changes in Atlantic storm tracks (van der Schrier and Barkmeijer, 2005), anomalously cold winter and summer temperatures in Scandinavia (Bjerknes, 1965), and the repositioning of the polar front and changing sea ice cover (Ogilive and Jonsson, 2001)." In addition, they state that "the Holocene record of sand drift in western Europe includes episodes of movement corresponding to periods of Northern Hemisphere cooling (Bond et al., 1997) ... and provides the additional evidence that these periods, like the Little Ice Age, were also stormy."

What it means
On the basis of these several real-world reconstructions of North Atlantic storminess that impacted western Europe, it would appear that global warming would result in less rather than more storminess in that part of the planet, in contradiction of most climate-alarmist claims of more frequent and stronger storms there -- and elsewhere -- if the world were to warm any further.

References
Bjerknes, J. 1965. Atmospheric-ocean interaction during the 'Little Ice Age.' In: WMO-IUGG Symposium on Research and Development Aspects of Long-Range Forecasting, WMO-No. 162, TP 79, Technical Note 66, pp. 77-88.

Bond, G., Showers, W., Cheseby, M., Lotti, R., Almasi, P., deMenocal, P., Priore, P., Cullen, H., Hajdas, I. and Bonani, G. 1997. A pervasive millennial-scale cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and Glacial climate. Science 278: 1257-1266.

Ogilvie, A.E.J. and Jonsson, T. 2001. "Little Ice Age" research: a perspective from Iceland. Climatic Change 48: 9-52.

van der Schrier, G. and Barkmeijer, J. 2005. Bjerknes' hypothesis on the coldness during AD 1790-1820 revisited. Climate Dynamics 24: 355-371.