In a new study, expertly reported on by Dana Nuccitelli, researchers show that climate models incorporating short-term El Niño and sea surface temperature trends accurately depict current temperatures. This means the "pause" does not invalidate climate models but simply shows that models tuned to discern short term trends (like the pause) capture it better than models focused solely on long term climate trends.
Watts has an in-depth post, but the bulk of his contention seems to be that Stephan Lewandowsky (author of the paper connecting conspiracy theories and climate denial) and Naomi Oreskes (co-author of Merchants of Doubt) are co-authors to the paper.
Regardless, this paper provides a helpful rebuttal to the deniers' tired "models have failed" meme.