It's also completely meaningless even if the conversion was right. They're comparing the average ocean surface temperature off the east coast of North America t

It's also completely meaningless even if the conversion was right. They're comparing the average ocean surface temperature off the east coast of North America to just "the average temperature between 1981 and 2011." The average temperature of what and where? The ocean? Water surface? Air? Globally? Off the coast of North America? Then a few paragraphs later: But that doesn't account for the average global ocean surface temperature rising by 0.9°C from preindustrial levels, with 0.6°C taking place in the last four decades. I can't even. They went from 14 to 0.6 in the span of two sentences.