ST 590G -- Computation for Data Analysis

  First Assignment -- due Thursday, 03 September 2009

       In the file maunaloa.co2 are atmospheric carbon dioxide 
       measurements taken on a station on the Big Island of Hawaii.
       (This site is one of the oldest for this important data.)
       The data have the format
      
       Year Jan Feb ...... Dec Annual 

       where 'Annual' should be the mean for that year.
       Notice the header and foot that also describe missing value
       format.

       a) Check the yearly means -- are the records consistent?
       
       b) Create a dataset with each observation corresponding to
       a month, with variables YEAR, MONTH (numeric) and CO2.
       Print out the first few and last few observations.
       
       c) Now read similar data from the South Pole in the file
       sposio.co2 in a similar format.

       d) Merge these data together by date.

       e) Plot each series by time.
   
       f) Plot the Mauna Loa series versus South Pole.

       g) Compute the correlation between Mauna Loa and South Pole
       measurements.

       FOR ALL EXERCISES: Hand in
        (1)  Your program
            * With as many comments as you have toes! *
        (2)  Your output
        (3)  The answers to the questions asked.