Paul... why the long space? 
Paul, you're only applying your logic ...to the ‘incoming’ energy,
but that logic probably explains why the mesosphere warms as one descends, and why the stratosphere then cools (descending)
–since the incoming heat has been blocked,
I suppose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth===
...
But, you’re overlooking
the ‘outgoing’ energy, which is much longer (in wavelength) than the incoming energy.
Outgoing energy is
greater than 3 microns (the Far Infrared, where the planet loses thermal energy to space).
===
The outgoing energy (
leaving the surface) gets delayed by GHGs in that lower layer, the troposphere (
first graph, above), which heats this lowest layer of atmosphere (that the energy encounters) on the way out.
That may be why my professor said that the ‘greenhouse effect’ is just “another name for vertical layers and structure” in our atmosphere.===
While some of that ‘incoming’ energy is trapped/blocked by the atmosphere at [
very dry] high altitudes....
Below, you can see how much more of the long-wave, “thermal” radiation, greater than 3 microns (3000 nm),
outgoing radiation is blocked at low altitudes by
water vapor and the GreenHouse Gases
(GHGs which somewhat 'block' or
overlap the small windows where water does not already strongly absorb the outgoing energy).
That is why the sun only accounts for about 1/3 of the energy that directly warms the Earth,
while “2/3 of the energy that warms Earth comes from the atmosphere.”
–per class notes, 2011~
