The year 2021 was Australia’s coolest year in almost a decade and also the nation’s wettest in five years, according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s Annual Climate Statement, released on Thursday. While the mean temperature was 0.56 degrees celsius (33 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1961 to 1990 reference period, 2021 was around 0.4 degrees celsius cooler (32.4 degrees Fahrenheit) than the average temperature between 2011 and 2020. Bureau of Meteorology Senior Climatologist Dr Simon Grainger said that “one of the big differences between 2021 and recent years is that it was actually much cooler in 2021 than the last decade.” The cooler conditions were brought about by two La Niña events, the first during the summer of 2020-21 and the second commencing in November of 2021. According to the Bureau, La Niña is a weather pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean that brings cooler than usual maximum daytime temperatures south of …