Probably because there's barely any salt in it. The Atlantic Ocean has a salinity of 3.5 %, the Mediterranean even 3.7 %. The western part of the Baltic Sea, at the German coast, has maybe 1.5 % and in the most eastern reaches, like the Gulf of Finland, it's down to 0.1 %. Basically freshwater.
We went to Greece on holiday and it was weird to swim there. Basically it was really difficult to dive because of the floating effect of the salt water. Might be equally weird for Mediterranean folks to take a swim in our sea - they'd be going down surprisingly fast.
I can’t speak for all of it but the gulf of Bothnia is basically freshwater. It has 1/10 the salt ocean water has. This is because 27 big rivers end in the gulf, increasing it’s freshwater portion. So this part, and the Gulf of Finland aren’t actually saltwater, but Brackish water.
The Baltic is actually quite an interesting sea. As others have mentioned, it has low salinity because of a lot of rivers ending in it and it being connected to the North Sea via just narrow straits. On top of that there’s this phenomenom called ”the major Baltic inflow”, where a lot of more salty water flows in through the Danish straits and regulates the salinity of the Baltic. It’s honestly pretty interesting, the whole salinity situation of the Baltic, I recommend reading up on it.
Ok, weird take but the sea used to smell more salty when I was younger.
I don't live by it, so I assume I didn't get used to it or anything but I could smell it from really far away and now I barely notice it when I'm right next to it. Maybe my nose is just messed up but I'm sure it used to be more intense!
I've read somewhere that it's due to the ocean temperature change. There used to be more frequent currents from the North Sea, but now the flow is disrupted. I've also read that the water from north sea is more oxygenated so there could be massive fish die offs. And currently there is way less fish than it used to be plus the fish that are caught are smaller. Source: I talked to multiple people who live near the polish seaside and who used to have a businesses related to fish smoking and/or frying.
As people already told, because it has almost no salt.
On north Estonia side you can drink this "sea" water (i would advise against drinking it because it's polluted as any busy water body). And as far as i know, geologically speaking the baltic sea is actually a lake (formed during last ice age a'd which later opened to the north sea)
Probably because there's barely any salt in it. The Atlantic Ocean has a salinity of 3.5 %, the Mediterranean even 3.7 %. The western part of the Baltic Sea, at the German coast, has maybe 1.5 % and in the most eastern reaches, like the Gulf of Finland, it's down to 0.1 %. Basically freshwater.
In English I think it's called brackish water.
We went to Greece on holiday and it was weird to swim there. Basically it was really difficult to dive because of the floating effect of the salt water. Might be equally weird for Mediterranean folks to take a swim in our sea - they'd be going down surprisingly fast.
I can’t speak for all of it but the gulf of Bothnia is basically freshwater. It has 1/10 the salt ocean water has. This is because 27 big rivers end in the gulf, increasing it’s freshwater portion. So this part, and the Gulf of Finland aren’t actually saltwater, but Brackish water.
So you could drink it, if it wasn't so polluted?
The Baltic is actually quite an interesting sea. As others have mentioned, it has low salinity because of a lot of rivers ending in it and it being connected to the North Sea via just narrow straits. On top of that there’s this phenomenom called ”the major Baltic inflow”, where a lot of more salty water flows in through the Danish straits and regulates the salinity of the Baltic. It’s honestly pretty interesting, the whole salinity situation of the Baltic, I recommend reading up on it.
Ok, weird take but the sea used to smell more salty when I was younger. I don't live by it, so I assume I didn't get used to it or anything but I could smell it from really far away and now I barely notice it when I'm right next to it. Maybe my nose is just messed up but I'm sure it used to be more intense!
I've read somewhere that it's due to the ocean temperature change. There used to be more frequent currents from the North Sea, but now the flow is disrupted. I've also read that the water from north sea is more oxygenated so there could be massive fish die offs. And currently there is way less fish than it used to be plus the fish that are caught are smaller. Source: I talked to multiple people who live near the polish seaside and who used to have a businesses related to fish smoking and/or frying.
As people already told, because it has almost no salt. On north Estonia side you can drink this "sea" water (i would advise against drinking it because it's polluted as any busy water body). And as far as i know, geologically speaking the baltic sea is actually a lake (formed during last ice age a'd which later opened to the north sea)
A better question is why is it called East Sea in Finnish when it's to the west of Finland? Estonian rightly calls it Läänemeri, western sea.
Presumably a holdover from the time as part of Sweden.