Comment on "Power-law correlations in the southern-oscillation-index fluctuations characterizing El Niño"

In a recent publication [Phys. Rev. E 63, 047201 (2001)], Ausloos and Ivanova report power-law probability distributions, fractal properties, and antipersistent long-range correlations in the southern oscillation index. As a comparison with artificial short-range correlated data shows, most of these findings are possibly due to misleading interpretation of the analysis techniques used.