Background
Speaking of windstorms, the authors note that with the perspective of anthropogenic climate change, the occurrence of such extreme events may "create the perception that ? the storms lately have become more violent, a trend that may continue into the future."

What was done
Relying on data, rather than perception to address the topic, Barring and von Storch analyzed long time series of pressure readings for Lund (since 1780) and Stockholm (since 1823) in Sweden.  Specifically, they analyzed (1) the annual number of pressure observations below 980 hPa, (2) the annual number of absolute pressure tendencies |Äp|/Ät exceeding 16 hPa/12h, and (3) intra-annual 95th and 99th percentiles of the absolute pressure differences between two consecutive observations (6h < Ä < 18h).

What was learned
The authors report that the storminess proxy time series they developed "are remarkably stationary in their mean, with little variations on time scales of more than one or two decades."  They note, for example, that "the 1860s-70s was a period when the storminess indices showed general higher values," as was the 1980s-90s, but that, subsequently, "the indices have returned to close to their long-term mean."

What it means
Barring and von Storch conclude their paper by stating that their storminess proxies "show no indication of a long-term robust change towards a more vigorous storm climate."  In fact, during "the entire historical period," in their words, storminess was "remarkably stable, with no systematic change and little transient variability."  Hence, we can conclude that for Sweden, at least, and perhaps for much of the surrounding region, there has been no warming-induced increase in windstorms over the entire transitional period between the Little Ice Age and the Modern Warm Period, which suggests there is little reason to believe that this non-trend would change with any further warming of the globe, in stark contradiction of what most climate alarmists continually claim will occur.