evidence: But nearly a decade later, talk of a "pause" has re-emerged among climate sceptics, with columnist Melanie Phillips claiming in the Times this week that, "contrary to the dogma which holds that a rise in carbon dioxide inescapably heats up the atmosphere, global temperature has embarrassingly flatlined for more than seven years even as CO2 levels have risen". [...] As with the previous hiatus, drawing the conclusion that warming has "flatlined" relies heavily on looking at data over a short period in isolation. [...] One of the main drivers of the apparent "pause" in warming over the past eight years is the choice to cherry-pick the starting year to coincide with the 2015-16 super El Niño event. Indeed, when El Niño and La Niña are statistically removed from the observed record, the rise in temperatures is much more even, as shown in the figure below.