PT79.S1.Q10 - The more sunlight our planet reflects

TheLSATer

I have come back to this question a few times and I still do not fully understand 1. Why D is wrong and 2. Exactly what C is saying.

This is my understanding of the stimulus and answer choice The more sunlight that is reflected back into space, the cooler the atmosphere. Snow and Ice reflect more sunlight back to space so the argument concludes that earth's surface covered with snow/ice would be cooler. So if D is correct and the atmosphere derives most of its heat from passage through the sunlight through it AND if snow/ice reflects more of that sunlight back to space than land without snow/ice, wouldn't this strengthen the conclusion?

I am not really sure what I am missing here. None of the online explanations seems to click with me so any help/feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Admin note: edited title and added link
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-79-section-1-question-10/

LSAT2019-2

Hello- I'm in a similar situation.
My paraphrasing of the argument: 1) The more sunlight the Earth reflects back into space, the cooler the atmosphere becomes.
2) Snow and ice reflect more sunlight than lands without snow cover (eg. ocean water).
Therefore, the more Earth that is covered with snow and ice, the cooler the atmosphere becomes.

I guess the gap is that we don't know if snow and ice combined creates a special effect which interferes with the cooling of the atmosphere.

I chose D too: the atmosphere derives most of its heat from the passage of sunlight through it as the strengthener because I didn't understand C.

help

drbrown2

D doesn't do anything to help our conclusion. How would light passing through the atmosphere provides the most heat for the atmosphere help us, when we are saying that more snow/ice = cooler atmosphere? I think that weakens our conclusion, since sunlight passes back through the atmosphere and into space when it is reflected. We know from the first premise that the more sunlight that is reflected back into space, the cooler the atmosphere becomes.

C helps strengthen the support by saying that the area not covered by snow/ice have the opposite effect and heat up the atmosphere. So obviously the more snow/ice, the more reflecting, the cooler it gets. More land and water being heated by sunlight heats up the atmosphere. It doesn't say land not covered by snow, but just land. Still, if the land is covered by snow, it won't get heated by the sunlight. If it is bare, it will get heated.

BlindReviewer

I also fell for D, even though I knew C strengthen, but my reasoning was that D had "most" so it meant it would be a stronger candidate for the ice cooling the atmosphere. This is, of course, if you read the comparative conclusion in terms of HOW MUCH the ice will cool rather than just the fact that the ice will cool.

I think if we focus on the comparative element of the conclusion, that as more ice covers the earth, the cooler the atmosphere will be, the appeal of D kind of dies out. While there definitely is that whole bit about reflecting sunlight and sunlight "passing through the atmosphere" I think even aside from that, the fact that D doesn't approach the stimulus from the angle of the correlation between more ice and cooler atmosphere is what rules it out. C definitely strengthens the conclusion that as you get more ice, the atmosphere temperature will drop.

I think one more thing is, we know that only one answer choice can strengthen, because otherwise there would be a whole debate about what strengthens "more." I think with that, we can probably agree C is much more solid as a strengthener and D requires some creative thinking to make it work?