The leader of the Earths Illuminati is called the "Pindar". The Pindar is a member of one of the 13 ruling Illuminati families, and is always male. The title, Pindar, is an abbreviated term for "Pinnacle of the Draco", also known as the "Penis of the Dragon". Symbolically, this represents the top of power, control, creation, penetration, expansion, invasion, and fear. The holder of this rank reports to the purebred Reptilian leader in the inner Earth.

Recently, there are reports that the Marquis de Libeaux is the Pindar, but this is disinformation. The true current Pindar is the head of the Rothschild family, as has been for several hundred years. He is based in Germany near Frankfurt. In the late 1970s, he oversaw the sister project to Montauk, called M.A.L.D.A. is an anagram for Montauk-Alsace-Lorraine Dimensional Activation. This project was located near the city of Strasbourg, France, historically once part of Germany.

Interestingly, there is a winery on the east end of Long Island, not far from Montauk Point, called Pindar Vineyards. This wine is growing in popularity, gaining international accolades. This fits nicely into the plan, as this area will be a part of the capital district of the Earth/United Nations in the Empire State! Red wine is symbolic of the blood ingested by the Reptilians. The wine can become sanctified as it did in the Roman Catholic Church, a patsy for the Reptilians. In the Catholic Church, wine replaced the blood in ceremony.

The Illuminati here on Earth have established a pyramid structure of control identical to the system that exists in the Draco Empire. The pyramid with the Reptilian eye, located on the American one-dollar bill, is symbolic of this control structure. The eye is the cap on the pyramid, thus explaining why the original surface of the Great Pyramid in Egypt was capped in solid gold.

The Pindar is represented by the gold cap on the pyramid. The next layer, or "eye", on the pyramid represents the 13 ruling families.

They are as follows:

• Rothschild (Bauer or Bower) - Pindar

• Bruce

• Cavendish (Kennedy)

• De Medici

• Hanover

• Hapsburg

• Krupp

• Plantagenet

• Rockefeller

• Romanov

• Sinclair (St. Clair)

• Warburg (del Banco)

• Windsor (Saxe-Coburg-Gothe)

Each of the 13 ruling families is given an area of the Earth and/or a particular function to fulfill on the Earth.

These particular functions include:

• global finances

• military technology/development

• mind-control

• religion

• media

Each of the 13 ruling families has a Council of 13 as well. The number, 13, has great significance to them. They know that there are 12 types of energies that pass through the 10 aspects of God-Mind. The totality of the 12 energies equals a 13^th energy. This is considered the most powerful knowledge.

They also know that there are really 13 Zodiac signs, not the commonly acknowledged 12. They have kept the 13^th hidden for centuries because it is the sign of the Dragon. They keep the qualities and traits of this sign secret to avoid giving away clues to the Reptilian mind-pattern.

The next layer is the second-in-command families who do the support work for the Pindar and 13 ruling families. While all of the 13 ruling family members are shape-shifters, all members of the 300 supporting families are not. They do, however, all have a high percentage of Reptilian DNA.

They are known as the "Committee of 300".These families include such notable names as Agnelli, Balliol, Beale, Bell, Bouvier, Bush, Cameron, Campbell, Carnegie, Carrington, Coolidge, Delano, Douglas, Ford, Gardner, Graham, Hamilton, Harriman, Heinz, Kuhn, Lindsay, Loeb, Mellon, Montgomery, Morgan, Norman, Oppenheimer, Rhodes, Roosevelt, Russell, Savoy, Schiff, Seton, Spencer, Stewart/Stuart, Taft, and Wilson. There are many others...

The Committee of 300 use many well-known institutions to accomplish their goals, including the

• Council on Foreign Relations

• Bilderbergers

• Trilateral Commission

• Club of Rome

• Royal Institute for International Affairs

• Mafia

• CIA

• NSA

• Mossad

• Secret Service

• International Monetary Fund

• Federal Reserve

• Internal Revenue Service

• Interpol,

...to name a few.

All of these are private organizations or corporations set up as public service devices, but this is far from the truth.

The Illuminati structure also creates artificial countries to further their goals. Examples of these are the United States, Switzerland, Kuwait, the Soviet Union, Panama, Israel, Italy, Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom, most of Black Africa, all of the Arab countries, and all of Central and South America. These nations were created to amass wealth for the ruling families and their supporters, to hide or keep their wealth, and to create unstable conditions necessary to start wars or increase military budgets.

Switzerland was created as a neutral banking centre so that Illuminati families would have a safe place to keep their funds without fear of destruction from wars and prying eyes.

The United States was established with 13 colonies, one for each of the Illuminati families. The original flag had 13 stars, and still has 13 stripes. The eagle, the symbol of the United States, holds 13 arrows in its talons. The United States is actually a corporate asset of the Virginia Company that was established in 1604 in England with direct involvement of the Rothschilds. The finances of the Rothschilds were necessary to fund the exploration and exploitation of the North American continent.

The assets of the Virginia Company, including the United States, are owned by the Holy Roman Empire via the Vatican. This occurred in 1213 when King James gave all English assets to the Reptilian Pope. Executorship remains with the British royal family, but actual ownership lies with the Roman Catholic Church.

The United States of America is not named after Amerigo Vespucci, as you learned in school. The Illuminati would never name a continent, actually two continents, after an Italian mapmaker.

The name is actually a combination of words.

• "Am" is the Hebrew word for "people"

• "Ame" is also the command form of the Spanish/Latin verb "to love"

• "Eri" or "ari" is a Hebrew term for "lion"

• "Rica" is the feminine form of the Spanish word for "rich"

• "Ka" is the ancient Egyptian word for soul, or spirit force within a body

There are two layers of meanings.

The Ancient Hebrew/Egyptian translates to say,

"the people of the lion with spirit force"

Hence, the pyramid and all-seeing eye on the one-dollar bill. The Latinized version translates to say, "love riches", in a feminized/physical reality way. This gives an idea of what they had in mind.

Take this a step further, and one sees the mixture of the feminine Latin/eagle ideas with the masculine Hebrew/lion ideas. The symbolic statement of America is that it is a combination of Lemuria and Atlantis; a blend of the human/Lyrae with Reptilian/Draco. Perhaps the anagram LSD, an Illuminati created drug, has a hidden meaning as well: Lyrae-Sirius-Draco!

The combination of these three civilizations would produce the most powerful, technological Empire ever known!

In 1776, the creation of the United States as an independent nation coincided with the declaration into public existence of the official Illuminati organization by member Adam Weishaupt, in Bavaria. Publicly, Mr. Weishaupt appeared to be determined to create an organization comprised of the European elite that would uplift mankind.

Of course, this was part of an Illuminati global ceremony. The creation for the United States and the Illuminati global ceremony. The creation of the United States and the Illuminati organization were artificial beginnings for public consumption. The United States was the device to be used to bring the Illuminati into public acceptance. Current Illuminati members believe that Adam Weishaupt was a look-alike for George Washington, and it is actually Weishaupts image that appears on the one-dollar bill.

George Washington was a wealthy slave and plantation owner. He is known to have raped some of his female slaves and used some of the male slaves in ritualistic ceremony. There are many people of the Black race who can literally trace their genetics to the founding fathers. George Washington also ordered the building of the Montauk Lighthouse in 1796. This lighthouse included an underground area for supply storage in case of a British coastline invasion. If he had only known what that area would become - or did he?

The 13 ruling Illuminati families constantly vie for control amongst themselves. During this time period, the Spanish, British, and French Illuminati all fought to win control over North and South America. The Rothschilds kept these Illuminati factions in line by sending Hessian troops to monitor the situation. The leaders enjoyed these war games, pitting one against the other to see who would win. The hundreds of thousands of lives lost were meaningless to them.

The Manifest Destiny of the United States was created to expand the territory of the Aryans at the expense of the native populations. As always, the Illuminati seek to destroy native peoples and their cultures. This is an attempt to destroy their knowledge of God-Mind, as well as the possibility that the natives will impart this information on to others.

Especially important is their need to eliminate native cultures with ancient knowledge of Atlantis and Lyrae.

The natives that gave them the most problem were the Cherokee Indians because this tribe retained most of their Atlantean knowledge, even accessing the Bear/Bigfoot frequency for information. For this reason, these people were uprooted from their homeland in the southern Appalachian Mountains, and forcibly marched to Oklahoma on what is now known as The Trail of Tears. Many died along the way. Only a remnant remained in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. In the north, the vast Iroquois/Mohawk nation was disbanded. The Montauk, direct descendents of the Atlanteans who call their leader Pharaoh, were systematically eliminated.

The Rothschilds were aggressively involved with the slave trade from Africa, importing slaves to North and South America as well as the Caribbean. They were very careful not to import Blacks from the eastern areas of Ethiopia or Sudan where the descendents of Solomon were located, instead concentrating on western and central Africa for the slave populations. These areas had the pure mixture of Anunnaki and simian genetics, and the programming desirable for the Illuminati agenda.

The Rothschilds decided that splitting the United States colonies would double their profits. So they politically created, and financially supported, the Civil War. The Civil War was actually a global ceremonial ritual to bring slavery to its next level.

This war allowed the North to win, and publicly abolish slavery. The best slaves are the ones who do not realize that they are slaves. This alleviates rebellion and resistance. This was the status immediately following the Civil War. Blacks in the South are still slaves. There is still segregation, even in the North. The Illuminati still consider Blacks to be second or third class citizens. Only now the slavery is subtle and masked.

Since the Civil War, there have been other staged wars that entrenched the trend toward globalization. The Spanish-American War of 1898-1899 acquired more land for the American Illuminati, placing a greater portion of the Earth’s surface under American jurisdiction. World War I was designed to change the map of Europe as well as test germ and chemical warfare technology for future use. This coincided with the worldwide influenza outbreak designed to reduce the global population, making control easier. World War I also laid the foundation for the German role in the next war.

World War II was a test of the final globalization and extermination projects. It was also designed to test mind-control machinations; to test the use of fluoride which deadens brain activity and slows resistance to authority; to experiment with slave labor camps and study the development of resistance; and to teach the masses to spy and report on one another.

World War II brought three primary goals of the Illuminati to fruition.

• The first was that hidden Illuminati symbolisms were brought to public attention from the underground strongholds in Tibet and Egypt, such as the Swastika and the ankh.

• The second was the creation of the State of Israel as a foundation for the New World Religion.

• The last was the creation of nuclear weapons as part of the Illuminati global ceremony.

During World War II, the Germans helped to perfect "sex-slaves" as a means of transmitting information amongst the elite. Sex-slaves can be either male or female, who are sexually programmed using Wilhelm Reich procedures, which are illegal in the United States, but used by the Illuminati and government.

These sex-slaves deliver messages and keep programmed sleepers in line. The sex-slave is downloaded with a message or function through various sexual acts and drugs, which can only be released by repeating the same sexual act with the target, or person, to be activated. They are trained to know their target’s trigger words and trigger events to activate, delete, or change programming.

In recent years, several women have come forward claiming to be the sex-slaves of globally recognized political figures. Many were used as information couriers between high-level male Illuminati. Usually, look-alikes of the political figures are used in the incipient programming as a focal point for the sex-slave. The slave is put through a desensitizing process, so there is no pleasure in the sexual act; it is merely a duty to be performed. Many times the slave becomes sexually promiscuous, repeatedly having sex with people who look like the intended target. It is a sad life.

By the end of World War II, one of the three major Illuminati global rituals was accomplished.

This was the nuclear explosion that took place in 1945 at the 33^rd parallel as a test for the nuclear attack on Japan. This explosion was symbolic, representing the simultaneous creation and destruction of matter and energy. The year was symbolic as well. In numerology, 1 + 9 = 10, representing the 10 aspects of God-Mind. The number 10 further breaks down to 1 + 0 = 1, representing a new beginning. Continuing, 4 + 5 = 9, representing the end of a cycle.

Symbolically, the entire event represented the end of a cycle to prepare for a new beginning using the new creation of God-Mind out of destruction.

Additionally, a cylinder containing material still not explained by the government was trucked into the nuclear explosion testing. This cylinder was made from pure steel and allegedly was the same physical dimensions as the Kabala describes for the creation of Golems. Kabala is ancient Hebrew metaphysics that has been a staple for the Illuminati for millennia. Golems are artificial beings that are used as a slave force. It is highly probable that this was a symbolic ritual for the creation of the society of Golems.

World War II also allowed the European/American Illuminati to destroy the Japanese Illuminati desires of global domination. The Japanese royal family, represented by Emperor Hirohito, have always been ostracized as non-legitimate by the ruling 13 families. The Japanese claim to be direct descendents of Lemurian purebred Reptilians.

The European/American Illuminati claim that the Japanese Illuminati are descendents from a lower species in the Draco hierarchy. This lower species is considered a worker class without any political clout or influence. The European/American Illuminati also claim that East Indians are a lower species in the Draco hierarchy. The 13 ruling families consider light skin and hair to be an elite characteristic.

On January 17, 1994, Japan sent a seismic event to California. Exactly one year later on January 17, 1995, the city of Kobe, Japan was seismically destroyed. Kobe was the home of the Japanese electromagnetic weaponry centers. The European/American Illuminati will not tolerate thorns in their sides. The destruction of Japan and its royal family will continue in the coming months.

Every year, the Illuminati hold meetings to plan the events of the coming year to accomplish their main objective formulated millennia ago of global control and domination. In the 1850s, they pinpointed their target date for complete domination with an agenda called Plan 2000.

This has since been revised to 2003. The fiasco election of George W. Bush Jr. to office is a key sign that they are on target. The public lesson of the United States presidential "election" of 2000 is that the citizens do not vote for anyone!

Even the Illuminati are now finding it increasingly difficult to conceal their plans.

There are many layers of symbolism to this:

• The penis and two testicles

• Two energies uniting to create a third, i.e., the human prototype

• The three levels of existence: hyperspace, astral, and physical

• The three levels of awareness: conscious, subconscious, and superconscious

• Androgyny leading to male and female sections

Thus, the number three was an important symbol to the Reptilians on Earth. They represent this in many ways, including the lily, or fleur-de-lis with its three points. They also use the scorpion with its stinger and two piercing claws.

The advanced version of the scorpion is the eagle, which represents the scorpion in its higher form. Because of this, the eagle came to represent raising from a lower form to a higher one. It represented power and globalization. Because it was a bird of prey, it was able to capture everything beneath it, especially live food. For these reasons, the Romans always used an eagle on their staffs whenever they marched into a city or country.

Most people do not realize that all birds are descendents of Reptilian dinosaurs. Many corporate logos and superheroes of today have wings attached to them. The wings also represent the winged Reptilian leaders in the upper echelon of the Reptilian/Illuminati flowchart.

Half a continent away in China, the remnants of Lemuria created a male-dominated Empire system. Here, the male Emperor would always have a Empress. The people were told that the Emperor and Empress were descendents of the Sun-God. The symbol of the Empire was the dragon, another Reptilian figure. This "royal" family created a dynasty that ruled tight-fisted for millennia.

The Chinese Reptilian religion spread across Eastern Asia, while the Sumerian version meandered through Central and Western Asia. The spread of these religions was intentionally controlled from the underground Reptilian population, primarily centered under Tibet. Looking at a world map, one can easily see that this is the best underground base location in Asia to reach all areas of the continent. These Reptilians were aided by beings from Sirius B who developed the Buddhist philosophies, as well as a group of renegade Lyraens trying to reproduce a Lyraen civilization under Reptilian control. Strange bedfellows!

At the same time in India, the Lemurian Reptilian refugees created a caste system that was a direct replica of the Reptilian hierarchy, from the lowly workers/untouchables to the Brahmin/winged ones. This Indian/Reptilian culture remained localized, writing the ancient Vedas and building temples to the various Reptilian gods.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians, who were Atlantean/Lyraen refugees, were in the process of building a new civilization from the remnants of their two major ancestral ones that were destroyed. The beings from Sirius A helped them, as they were a major factor in the interactions of Atlantis.

As previously stated, in Egypt, the Reptilian gods were known as Osiris and Isis. The Egyptian panacea of gods included a large variety of hybrid creations, half-human, half-animal. This was reminiscent of the Atlantean hybrid experiments that found their way into Egyptian culture, and was promoted by the Sirians who were preparing that culture for a Reptilian takeover.

The Atlanteans were so entrenched in the original Lyraen belief system, that it took several millennia for the Reptilians to get a stronghold in that culture. Now that the remnants were scattered over the Earth and non-cohesive, it was easy to send in infiltrators (in-full-traitors) to sway the belief system toward a Reptilian flavor.

This began with the introduction of the cat as a focal point of worship.

In the Sirius A star system, the main world is called Khoom. The ancient name for Egypt is Khem. There is also a correlation with Mexico. Some researchers say that the Bay of Campeche translates to the Bay of Old Egypt, indicating a connection between Egypt and the Yucatan Peninsula. This is not so.

Sirians who interacted with Atlantis named this area after their home world, and then carried the name on to the new refugee culture in Egypt.

Our info, is that the word KHEM for Egyptaus (Egypt) meant from the BLACKNESS, for the black or dark copper based nubian blood of Thoth/Enki RA line, which founded it. Evidence would include the black Zulu culture whose name for God - ENKI as in the KILIMANJARO - suggests their own black genetic origins with Enki (RA - abRAham) and his son Thoth. Later the word KHEM meaning BLACK hole became alchemy and CHEMistry, from the IMPLOSION principle of the ABILITY to MAKE black holes (which Gold’s electron valence fractality enables). Hence alCHEMy of the heart is the fusion ability which results from perfecting compression (compassion) implosion.

Another planet in orbit around Sirius A is a world called Kilroti. Here, the Sirians created high-intelligence cat-like beings. These cat-like beings are called the Lion People. In the 1970s and 1980s, the government created a cartoon for children that described these beings.

In the high astral levels, there is an etheric race of Lion Beings who are gold, have wings, and violet eyes. The name of the race is Ari. Ari is also the old Hebrew word for lion. Their frequency is more powerful than the dolphin frequency.

The Ari created the Ohalu Council that governs the Sirius A star system.

This fits interestingly with Anna Hayes (Voyagers series books, and Amenti) who claims that the REASON the Sphinx is Lion or cat lion shaped is that the star elders of the interventionist Anunnaki (Nephalim) were Leonine or cat/lion like. So it was politically correct for the fallen Anunnaki to claim that THEIR God was the Lion being. If your God is stronger than your enemies God, you have a problem in war, so your statue (the Sphinx) proves you have the right God (The Lion elders of Sirius) on your side.

We wonder why Swerdlow did not suggest that ARY-an .... means LION-based An-nunaki - instead of sum-aryan.

The Kilroti were generated by mixing the genetics of the Sirians with the energy of the Ari. This is what was brought to ancient Egypt. As the non-physical energy descended into physical reality, DNA formed that could be used to create corporeal life.

This was then mixed with human and wild lion DNA to form the common house cat found on Earth. The cat was given to every home in ancient Egypt, and programmed to leave at night to report back to their alien controllers. This is why cats to this day have the urge to go out at night. This also explains their aloof nature.

The Sirians incorporated worship of the cat idol into the Egyptian religion to ensure the perpetuity of this method of spying. The Sirians also built the Sphinx as a symbolic reminder of the blending of human genetics with lion frequency. This was a way to energetically bind future civilization to the Sirians. The Sphinx was designed to face the morning star Sirius A every day. The face on the Sphinx is identical to the face on the Mars monument that looks down to the Earth at the Sphinx.

Sirian technology built the complexes at the Cydonia plateau on Mars, upon the arrival of the first Lyraen refugees. The new Martians were unaware of the close Sirian connection to the Reptilians.

The original pyramids, built after the destruction of Atlantis, were energy points. They were the same shapes underground as above, making them into octahedrons. At their centre is a tetrahedron. This master shape is the archetype symbol for God-Mind totality. Anything at its exact centre is absolutely protected. The octahedron is also the shape of the Delta-T antenna used at the Montauk Project. This shape, when energized in the proper color codes, causes interdimensional rifts, creating vortices and wormholes.

Rituals performed at this centre point produce vast energies that can be transmitted through hyperspace to anywhere in creation.

We saw Preston Nichols spin the Delta T, octa antenna of Montauk - in model - at various psychotronic conferences. It seems neither he nor Swerdlow understood the reason it was later called DECA DELTA, as only when the octa/cube is tilt spun into dodeca (soulinvitation.com/merkabbah) do you get implosive compression that becomes superluminal and time penetrating acceleration thru C light speed. Observe to dodeca antenna required for time travel in the movie "CONTACT".

Some researchers claim that the pyramids were pumping stations for underground Nile tributaries. This is only partially true.

Because water is an electromagnetic amplifier, it was used to surround the ritual chamber located in the Delta-T to boost ritual energy. Using these methods, the ancient Egyptians controlled weather, destroyed enemies, created stargates, and boosted their Reptilian energies in ceremony. This is also why the Montauk Project was located near vast amounts of water.

The Great Pyramid is part of a protective solar system grid, linking the Moon and Mars monuments together to produce a force field to repel invaders.

The Great Pyramid is also connected to other points on the Earth such as Stonehenge, a submerged Atlantean crystal, Tiahuanaco, Ayers Rock, and the White Pyramid in western China. Together, they form an energy containment field similar to an electric fence.

The HAARP project in Alaska taps into this.

Meanwhile, a dynastic culture similar to the Reptilian Chinese dynasties was forming in Egypt. The Reptilian control religion based on Osiris and Isis fanned out over northeast Africa and the Middle East. At the same time the Reptilian Sumerian cult of Nimrod and Semiramis fanned out over Central Asia.

A unification of these beliefs was necessary to accomplish the plan set forth from the beginning. This is why Abraham originated in the Sumerian city of Ur, journeying westward toward the Middle East. It was no accident that the followers of Abraham wound up in Egypt, where the Sirians then created the Hebrews. The Hebrews were destined to be the cultural prototype for the future world.

This is why they were programmed to wander all over the Earth and influence all existing cultures.

SINGAPORE/ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier in Alaska.

Like many low-altitude glaciers, it's steadily melting, shrinking two miles over the past 200 years as it tries to strike a new balance with rising temperatures.

At the Kenai Fjords National Park south of Anchorage, managers have learned to follow the Exit and other glaciers, moving signs and paths to accommodate the ephemeral rivers of blue and white ice as they retreat up deeply carved valleys.

"Some of the stuff is changing fast enough that we now have signs on moving pedestals," said Fritz Klasner, natural resource specialist at Kenai Fjords.

The vast amounts of water stored in glaciers play crucial roles in river flows, hydropower generation and agricultural production, contributing to steady run-off for Ganges, Yangtze, Mekong and Indus rivers in Asia and elsewhere.

But many are melting rapidly, with the pace picking up over the past decade, giving glaciers a central role in the debate over causes and impacts of climate change.

That role has come even more sharply into focus after recent attacks on the U.N.'s climate panel, which included a wrong estimate for the pace of melting for Himalayan glaciers in a major 2007 report.

The report said Himalayan glaciers could all melt by 2035, an apparent typographical error that stemmed from using literature not published in a scientific journal. Climate skeptics seized on the error and used it to question the panel's findings on climate change.

The evidence for rapid glacial melting, though, is overwhelming.

The problem is no one knows exactly what's occurring in the more remote Himalayas and parts of the Andes. Far better measurements are crucial to really understand the threat to millions of people downstream.

"There is no serious information on the state of the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayan-Tibetan complex," Kurt Lambeck, President of the Australian Academy of Science, told a climate science media briefing in late February.

The high altitude and remoteness of many glaciers in the Himalayas and Andes is the main reason.

DATA IN A DEEP FREEZE

To try to fill the gap, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said last month the government would establish a National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology in Dehra Dun in the north.

In Europe and North America, glaciers are generally more accessible and there are more trained people to study them.

Switzerland's Aletsch glacier, the largest in the Alps, has been retreating for about 150 years.

But the glacier, which feeds the River Rhone, still stores an estimated 27 billion tonnes of ice, according to www.swissinfo.ch. That's about 12 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.

In 2008, a total of 79 Swiss glaciers were in retreat, while 5 were advancing, the Swiss Glacier Monitoring network says.

"There are a very small number of glaciers that are monitored," said veteran glaciologist Ian Allison, pointing to less than 100 globally for which there are regular "mass-balance" measurements that reflect how much a glacier grows or shrinks from one year to the next.

Such measurements are the benchmark and several decades of data is regarded as the best way to build up an accurate picture of what's happening to a glacier.

Glaciers originate on land and represent a sizeable accumulation of snow and ice over the years. They tend to carve their way through valleys as more and more ice accumulates until the point where more is lost through melting than is gained.

THAT SHRINKING FEELING

"We probably know less about the total volume of glaciers than we do about how much ice there is in the big ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic because a lot of it is in small mass areas and a lot of it is inaccessible," said Allison, leader of the Australian Antarctic Division's ice, ocean, atmosphere and climate program.

The World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland analyses mass balance data for just over 90 glaciers and says their average mass balance continues to decrease.

Since 1980, cumulative thickness loss of the reference glacier group is about 12 meters of water equivalent, it says in its latest 2007/08 report.

Estimates vary but glaciers and mountain caps could contribute about 70 cm (2.3 feet) to global sea levels, a 2009 report authored by Allison and other leading scientists says.

The "Copenhagen Diagnosis" report from the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales says there is widespread evidence of more rapid melting of glaciers and ice-caps since the mid-1990s.

That means run-off from melting glaciers and ice-caps is raising sea levels by 1.2 millimeters a year, translating to up to 55 cm (1.8 feet) by 2100 if global warming accelerates.

In Nepal, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development says "mass-balance" measurements would provide direct and immediate evidence of glacier volume increase or decrease.

"But there are still no systematic measurements of glacial mass balance in the region although there are promising signs that this is changing," the center said in a recent notice.

It said that based on studies, the majority of glaciers in the region are in a general condition of retreat.

"Small glaciers below 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) above sea level will probably disappear by the end of the century, whereas larger glaciers well above this level will still exist but be smaller," it said.

Glaciers have almost vanished from New Guinea island and in Africa and many on Greenland, the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica are also melting quickly, dumping large amounts of ice into the sea.

BAMBOO STICKS

Part of the problem is that glaciers are fickle things to measure, said Allison, and requires legwork and lots of bamboo stakes. These are placed in holes top to bottom, a potentially dangerous job, although satellites and lasers fitted to aircraft are changing this.

After a year or so, stakes placed up high will have had snow build up on them, so you can estimate how much snow fell there.

Those down low will have lost mass due to melt and evaporation, so there would be more of the canes sticking out.

"So you can measure how much height is lowered down below, how much it's gained up top. You'll need to know the density of the snow and ice as well," Allison said.

But he said glaciers in one region can all apparently behave differently in response to the same climate signal. "Because the fluctuations that occur in the front depend on how long it takes to transfer the mass from the top of the glacier to the bottom."

"You might have an area where all the small glaciers are all rapidly retreating but big glaciers still coming forward because they are still integrating changes that happened maybe 50 years ago," he added.

For the millions that live downstream, it is the impacts that are of most concern and among them is the threat of sudden bursting of lakes created as glaciers retreat.

About 14 of the estimated 3,200 glaciers in Nepal are at risk of bursting their dams.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, from Khumjung village in the shadows of Mount Everest, said the Imja glacial lake could burst its dam anytime and wash away villages.

"When I was a child I used to take our yaks and mountain goats for grazing on grassy flat land overlooking Everest," Sherpa said.

"What was a grazing ground for yaks in 1960 has now turned into the Imja due to melting of snow," Sherpa, now a trekking and climbing entrepreneur, said in Kathmandu.

A glacial lake broke its dam 25 years ago destroying trekking trails, bridges and a hydroelectric plant in the region. Neighbouring Bhutan also faces the threat of bursting dams.

Just how much water melting glaciers contribute to major rivers such as the Ganges and Brahmaputra, though, remains unknown.

Richard Armstrong, a senior scientist of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, said it was nonsense to think that if glaciers melted there would be no water in the Ganges, a lifeline for millions in northern India.

"Even if the glaciers disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't have a huge impact on the water supply. The rest of the river flow comes from rain and melting seasonal snow."

He said the center has put in a proposal to NASA to use satellite data to build a better picture of the area and altitude of glaciers in the Himalayas.

"What we want to look at is what's the contribution of melting glacier ice to the downstream hydrology," Armstrong said. "It's really what's of primary importance to the socio-economic impacts of retreating glaciers."

Allison and Armstrong and many other scientists have dismissed the row over the U.N. climate panel error as overblown but said it served as a useful reminder of the gaps in global glacier monitoring and the need for a far better picture.

"It certainly brought attention to the problem," said Armstrong.