Predictive Analytics 2020
Individual Assignment (20%)
In the past decade, the debate on climate change has received increasing attention due to concerns of the effects of global warming on future generations. Climate
change, by definition, is the change in the average weather pattern over time. Temperature is often used as a quantity that signifies this change. In this assignment you
will be exploring Melbourne’s weather patterns and provide a data-driven analysis of
climate change based on the given data set.
“MonthlyTemp.csv” contains monthly data on the average mininum and maximum air temperature in degree Celcius, measured at the weather station located at
Melbourne Airport. The data ranges from July 1970 to February 2020. Explore the
data set and provide an analysis of whether there is evidence that there is an increasing trend in air temperature in Melbourne. Make sure to also include your
prediction of the monthly average air temperatures over the next ten years
as part of your discussion.
You may consider (but not limit yourselves to) the following aspects of the analysis:
• Graphical exploration of the data.
• Time series decomposition of the data.
• Regression analysis.
• Forecast evaluation.
Provide your analysis in a report that is aimed at readers who are literate, but not
necessarily an expert, in statistical analysis. Your report should include the following
items:
• Executive summary.
• Discussions of the issues on hand and any exploratory data features.
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• Technical analysis - a succinct description of your technical analysis process.
• Discussion of key results - a summary of the results, with relevant statistics
appropriately summarized in table formats.
• Conclusion and limitations.
Things to note:
• The report should have at least 2cm margins on all sides, and be written in
12pt font size with at least 1.5 spacing.
• Tables of results and any graphical outputs that aid your discussions may be
included in an appendix (not to exceed 6 pages).
• You do not need to include every single outputs that are produced as part of
your analysis, but summarize the relevant ones.
• Screenshots of R-output is not an acceptable form of result presentation. If you
choose to report any estimates/statistics, they must be properly presented in
equation or table formats.
• Note that the appendix will only be looked at if they are referred to. Make sure
that sections of the appendix are marked and referred to in the body of your
report if you choose to put your key results in the appendix.
• Remember that this is an individual assignment, which must reflect your own
approach to model construction and predictive assessments. Plagarism of
any form is treated as a serious academic misconduct.