Age: LAST year was the coldest year around the world since 2000 — yet it was still the 10th hottest since records began in 1850, monitoring by British researchers has shown. It was a similar story in Australia, and especially in Victoria, where this decade has been the hottest and driest on record — drying out vegetation and making it more bushfire-prone. Global climate data for 2008 has been collated from thousands of sites on land and sea by the Climate Research Unit of the …