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Helium and Neon distributions from 1994 to 2015 are used to identify and quantify submarine melt water (SMW) from the Greenland Ice Sheet in the Labrador and Irminger Sea. SMW fractions >0.2% (maximum 0.62 +/- 0.075%) are confined in the upper 400 m of the Greenland shelf and slope and account for 12 +/- 6% of the total east Greenland freshwater flux. SMW is embedded in water of different mixtures of cold and fresh Polar Water and warm and saline Atlantic Water. The resulting salinity range from that mixture exceeds the effect of SMW addition by one order of magnitude. Up to now, SMW is not detectable in the formation region of the Labrador Sea Water. Episodically, He and Ne excess anomalies are found in the deep ocean, probably introduced by the East Greenland Current spill jets.

Plain Language Summary In a warming world, ice sheets from Greenland do not only melt at the surface, but at the part swimming in seawater also from below. This fraction of the melt is tracked in the ocean by measuring the concentrations of the noble gases Helium and Neon. They have been trapped in the ice and are released into the seawater during melting. We found out that most of the submarine melt water remained close to Greenland and has yet not intruded into the interior of the ocean.