Interannual length‐of‐day variation with relation to the southern oscillation/El Nino

The atmospheric and oceanic mass transport associated with the southern oscillation/El Nino will inevitably induce an interannual variation in the length of day. We conduct an empirical correlation study by comparing the Southern Oscillation Index time series and the interannual length‐of‐day variation (obtained by removing the long‐period and short‐period variations from a BIH length‐of‐day series) for the period 1957‐1983. The two series has a very encouraging qualitative correlation, in particular with respect to El Nino events; and the linear correlation coefficient is found to be 0.55. It is believed that much, if not most, interannual length‐of‐day variation is caused by the southern oscillation, and the true correlation is considerably higher than its apparent value considering the fact that the Southern Oscillation Index is merely an indicator derived from two local atmospheric measurements.