R help - Jan 2014 - very basic series correlation question

Hi, I hope the following question is appropriate for the list; reflects
that I've yet to use R and have limited statistical sensibility.

I've two metal ion concentration data sets, one each for two nearby
watercourses recorded over the same period (2008 to 2012), for which the
sampling dates differ across that period.

Would R's cor (stats) function be suitable to obtain a correlation measure
for the data sets?

Is there a better or more appropriate option?


Thanks, Peter

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On 1/4/2014 7:42 PM, Peter Turner wrote:
> Hi, I hope the following question is appropriate for the list; reflects
> that I've yet to use R and have limited statistical sensibility.
>
> I've two metal ion concentration data sets, one each for two nearby
> watercourses recorded over the same period (2008 to 2012), for which the
> sampling dates differ across that period.
>
> Would R's cor (stats) function be suitable to obtain a correlation
measure
> for the Y data sets?
Probably if it is paired on years. Start by plotting your data as 
scatter plot to check linearity. To read the help:
?plot
Then read ?cor and note the method argument.  By default cor() gives you 
Pearson correlation coefficients, but depending on the nature of your 
data, non-parametric Spearman or Kendall coefficients might be more 
appropriate.
> Is there a better or more appropriate option?
>
>
> Thanks, Peter
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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