[randog]

My confusion is in how that sentence is written. Read it again:

Their findings indicate less cloud cover blocked incoming radiation and trapped outgoing heat.

That sentence says that clouds allow incoming radiation and allow heat to escape the atmosphere, which is wrong. I think they meant to say:

Their findings indicate less cloud cover blocking incoming radiation and trapping outgoing heat.

[Justa]

I'm referring to atmospheric temperature measurements, not ground temperature measurements. I believe the article is too. By having less clouds less heat will be collected and preserved in the atmosphere, hence there will be lower observed atmospheric temperatures. The key I believe is where they say the measurements "indicate" and then go into their cloud hypothesis. Iow, it seems their whole cloud hypothesis is an attempt to explain what the satellite measurements show. They just don't want to say what those measurements are. Nope, they'll let us know what the secret measurements indicate without letting us know what the measurements show.

Their argument seems to be: less clouds = less heat retained by the atmosphere which = the atmospheric satellite data gathered from the 1980s - 1990s [i.e., lower atmospheric temperatures reported by the satellite]. They just want to leave out what the satellite data actually shows and jump to a hypothesis to account for it.

[Justa]

"The observations capture changes in the radiation budget-the balance between Earth's incoming and outgoing energy-that controls the planet's temperature and climate."

A fancy way of saying these are nothing more than atmospheric temperature measurements. So, since "more heat went out of the atmosphere in the 1990s" simply means atmospheric temperatures in the tropics dropped in the 1990s.