How will the right answer fit in terms of support and conclusion?

Only the right answer will match your highlighted conclusion.

Highlight the main conclusion in the passage, if there is one:

this conclusion is far from justified

Climatologist: [BACKGROUND]. [BACKGROUND]. However, [CONCLUSION]—[SUPPORT].

The author disagreeing with someone else is the most common kind of conclusion on the LSAT. And you can spot it coming a mile away when you see background info that sounds like, “Some people say…” So you had this whole thing sniffed out when you saw “Some scientists claim…”

Map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage:

(A) …have grown significantly warmer…

This maps to the background info in the first sentence.

(B) …is not a symptom of a more general…

This will easily be the most popular wrong answer. But be careful. Saying something “is far from justified” is not the same as saying it’s wrong. This distinction will probably come up again in your prep, so you’ll have chances at redemption if you stepped in it here.

(C) The conclusion that…is far from justified.

This exactly matches the conclusion in the passage, and fills in details that all map exactly to statements made in the background and support. Chef’s kiss.

(D) …may be the result of a natural cycle…

Careful. This could be a fair inference to make based on the passage, but that’s not what the prompt is asking for. The author didn’t actually say this, so it can’t be their “main conclusion”.

(E) If the warming of the waters…

Stop. The author’s conclusion wasn’t conditional, so no answer with that if-then form could be correct.

(C) is the correct answer.