Measuring Temperature

Recently I’ve been reading up on global warming. I came across something that I hadn’t heard before on the measuring of temperatures. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, thousands of measuring stations closed in the former USSR. The closing of these stations in cold areas correspond to the rise in temperature measured in the late nineties. Now whenever I see the claims that 1998 was the hottest year on record, I can’t get excited about it. It should be expected that eliminating thousands of Siberian and other cold weather stations will lead to an increase in measured temperature.