We have identified a list of “high performance” soil carbon
managers who have demonstrated a potential well beyond the
average. These ‘outliers’ present a challenge for the
conventional estimation of the potential of Australian soils to
sequester carbon. If these outliers can do it, it can be done.
The CSIRO’s chief soil carbon scientist Jeff Baldock pointed us
in the direction of these outliers. We need a study of high
performance individuals and what characteristics they share. We
need the equivalent of the Australian Institute of Sport for
carbon farmers. AN outlier is a point that is off the curve. In
statistics, an outlier is an observation that is numerically
distant from the rest of the data. An outlying observation, or
outlier, is one that appears to deviate markedly from other
members of the sample in which it occurs. (Grubbs, F. E.: 1969,
Procedures for detecting outlying observations in samples.
Technometrics 11, 1–21.) “Outliers… are often indicative either
of measurement error or that the populat