It's the 5 year average that has been stable for the last decade, so at least 12.5 years of stability. There are still plenty of unknowns, as you say it could be a pause caused by natural factors, but there would need to be extremely strong natural factors if the climate was showing a strong positive feedback on CO2 induced AGW. I think that is what most recent science is pointing too, a moderate to low feedback regime at worst, so the worst projections of the models are increasingly unlikely.
