Yep. And that's a good part of why I tend to refer to it as a slowdown, not a pause. I think there has been at least a little bit of a decrease in the rate of warming (though the "missing" heat may be in parts of the ocean we can't measure well), but if you include even just what we know of ocean temperatures, there isn't a true *pause*.

They could only be excluded from the "18 year pause in global temperatures" claim when they do not form a (considerable) part of our globe nor play a vital role in our climate.

90% of the incremental warming goes into the oceans.