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The Eemian sea was a body of water located approximately where the Baltic sea is now during the last or Eemian interglacial, MIS 5e, roughly 130,000 to 115,000 BP. Sea level was 5 to 7 meters higher globally than it is today, due to the prior release of glacial water. Although “Eemian” rightly applies only to the north European glacial system, some scientists use the term in a wider sense to mean any high-level body of water in the last interglacial.

The early Eemian sea connected with the White sea along the line of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Karelia was inundated and Lakes Ladoga and Onega were mere depressions in the shallow end of the Eemian sea. At the other end the sea connected more broadly to the North Sea. Much of north Europe was under shallow water. Scandinavia was an island. The salinity of the Eemian sea was comparable to that of the Atlantic. Scientists reach these conclusions from a study of types of microorganisms fossilized in the clay sediments laid down in the Eemian sea, and from the included pollen of Corylus, Carpinus and Betula.

During MIS 5e, the mean annual temperature was 3 °C higher than today. At its end, during the cooler prelude of 5d, c, b and a, the region continued to rise isostatically. Some water was recaptured in ice. Levels in the Eemian sea dropped and the opening to the White Sea was blocked. The post-Eemian brackish lake did not last long geologically speaking, but was covered totally with ice. The Weichselian glaciation starting fully in MIS 4, with an interstadial in 3 and a greatest extent in 2, was, at its maximum in 20,000-18,000 BP, more than 3 km high. As the lake bed was only a few hundred meters deep, no lake could have existed. The ice extended southward into north Europe as far as France and eastward as far as Poland. At its recession, the Baltic ice lake appeared.

• Background to the BALTEEM Project
• Eemian at Peski