A weak El Nio event in 2002 detected by the astronomical observation

Using the length-of-day (LOD) data series derived from astronomical observations made by various modern space techniques, southern oscillation index (SOI) and anomalies of sea surface temperature (SST) in tropical Pacific Ocean, the inter-annual components of these data series are obtained by the technique of band filtering from January 1962 to October 2002. It is found that a new ENSO event has already occurred in 2002 and been detected by the interannual LOD. It is shown by the wavelet analysis that the component with a period of about 4-6 years and the quasi-biennial component are out of phase during 2001-2002, which consequently suggests that the new ENSO event cannot be a strong one.