What was done
The authors analyzed 62 years of sea-level data for the period 1 July 1939 to 30 June 2001 at Trieste, in the Northern Adriatic, to determine historical trends of positive and negative surges and anomalies.

What was learned
Weak and moderate positive surges did not exhibit any definite trends, while strong positive surges clearly became less frequent over the period of study, even in the face of a gradually rising sea level, "presumably," in the words of the author, "as a consequence of a general weakening of the atmospheric activity," which has also been found to be the case for Brittany (Pirazzoli, 2000).  Negative anomalies, on the other hand, all became less frequent, particularly the weak and moderate ones.

What it means
Over the last six decades of the 20th century, when climate alarmists claim there has been dramatic global warming, which they claim will intensify storminess, which would be expected to lead to more dramatic storm surges, just the opposite has been observed at Trieste in the Northern Adriatic, even with a concomitantly rising sea level that would tend to promote greater storm surges.

Reference
Pirazzoli, P.A.  2000.  Surges, atmospheric pressure and wind change and flooding probability on the Atlantic Coast of France.  Oceanologica Acta 23: 643-661.