Question 13.65

13.65 Annual precipitation.

Global temperatures are increasing. Great Lakes water levels meander up and down (see Figure 13.41, page 687). Do all environmental processes exhibit time series patterns? Consider a time series of the annual precipitation (inches) in New Jersey from 1895 through 2013.35

precip

  1. Make a time plot of the precipitation series.
  2. If software has the capability, produce an ACF for the series. If an ACF is not available with software, calculate the correlations between and and between and . Test these correlations against the null hypothesis that the underlying correlation .
  3. Based on parts (a) and (b), what do you conclude about the precipitation process?

13.65

(a) Precipitation over time looks random. (b) The ACF shows the annual precipitation series is random. (c) The annual precipitation series is random.