Differencing is a technique used to make a time series stationary by removing trends or seasonality. It involves subtracting the value of an observation from the previous one. For example, if the original series is [100, 120, 130, 150], the first differenced series becomes [20, 10, 20]. This process is key to applying models like ARIMA that require stationarity. Stationarity means that a time series has a constant mean, variance, and autocorrelation over time. Many real-world datasets, such as sales or temperature data, have trends that need differencing to stabilize them. Without stationarity, model predictions may be inaccurate. Differencing can be applied multiple times, but over-differencing should be avoided as it can introduce noise into the data. Checking plots or performing statistical tests like the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test can help confirm whether differencing is sufficient. For instance, a time series that shows a downward trend may need first-order differencing, while seasonal patterns might require seasonal differencing.
What is differencing in time series, and why is it used?
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