Instrument siting must adhere to standards. The GHCN and other sources of station data started out as weather stations run by volunteers. They had no agenda. The automated stations have no agenda. Again, those who maintain the temperature records are paid regardless of what the trends are. Read this carefully: There is no "financial incentive to show it's getting warmer". And nothing nefarious happens with the data analysis. The raw and adjusted data from the providers all show warming...actually the global raw data show greater trends than the adjusted.

No, you can't count SH temperature stations on your fingers and toes. As an exercise in reality, look back at the map of stations in the UHIE paper and count the dots in the SH. Now count your fingers and toes. Compare.

In addition to a the thousands of surface stations, we also have MSUs (satellites) with greater spacial coverage, radiosondes, and thousands of ocean buoys and ship measurements. Guess what? All of them show warming.