If its showing relative magnitude of change, 53 degrees is better than 0. Whether how much farther this is from other "hot" years than they are from each other is a key point is at least debatable.
For any purpose for which a zero is needed (which doesn't include showing magnitude of change), for temperature 0 degrees F (which presumably this is -- a real problem with this is that it just specifies degrees, which is ambiguous) is just as arbitrary and inappropriate as 53 degrees F; if you are doing a visualization for which it is important to show a meaningful zero, you'd actually want absolute zero (0K). But for most things related to climate change, there's no reason for "zero" as the baseline.
There's certainly purposes for which a meaningful baseline other than 0K or 53F would be appropriate -- what that baseline would be depends on the purpose.
3D columns are bad of course, but that is neglible.