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Pronounced warming in the Arctic region, coined Arctic amplification, is an important feature of observed and modelled climate change^,. Arctic amplification is generally attributed to the retreat of sea-ice and snow, and the associated surface-albedo feedback, in conjunction with other processes^,,,. In addition, the predominant thermal surface inversion in winter has been suggested to pose a negative feedback to Arctic warming by enhancing infrared radiative cooling. Here we use the coupled climate model EC-Earth in idealized climate change experiments to quantify the individual contributions of the surface and the atmosphere to infrared radiative cooling. We find that the surface inversion in fact intensifies Arctic amplification, because the ability of the Arctic wintertime clear-sky atmosphere to cool to space decreases with inversion strength. Specifically, we find that the cold layers close to the surface in Arctic winter …