Seasonal dependency (seasonality) is another general component of the time series pattern. The concept was illustrated in the example of the airline passengers data above. It is formally defined as correlational dependency of order k between each i'th element of the series and the (i-k)'th element (Kendall, 1976) and measured by autocorrelation (i.e., a correlation between the two terms); k is usually called the lag. If the measurement error is not too large, seasonality can be visually identified in the series as a pattern that repeats every k elements.
Autocorrelation correlogram. Seasonal patterns of time series can be examined via correlograms. The correlogram (autocorrelogram) displays graphically and numerically the autocorrelation function (ACF), that is, serial correlation coefficients (and their standard errors) for consecutive lags in a specified range of lags (e.g., 1 through 30). Ranges of two standard errors for each lag are usually marked in correlograms but typically the size of auto correlation is of more interest than its reliability (see Elementary Concepts) because we are usually interested only in very strong (and thus highly significant) autocorrelations.
Examining correlograms. While examining correlograms, you should keep in mind that autocorrelations for consecutive lags are formally dependent. Consider the following example. If the first element is closely related to the second, and the second to the third, then the first element must also be somewhat related to the third one, etc. This implies that the pattern of serial dependencies can change considerably after removing the first order auto correlation (i.e., after differencing the series with a lag of 1).