Katherine Brown is a climatologist based on Antarctica, when the Ross Ice shelf shatters and slides into the ocean she and her team must traverse the rapidly changing Antarctic terrain to reach the relative safety of a base camp at Cape Colbeck; only a few will survive the trek through ice and mud and snow.
Peter Taylor and his family survived the first wave but not the second. Alone and homeless he is forced to scavenge in flooded supermarkets for food and avoid roving gangs of bandits that quickly establish themselves as social norms disintegrate to be replaced by anarchy. He meets a mysterious and alluring woman, who, like himself, finds herself thriving in the post-apocalypse world.
Jeremy Jones is an archaeologist with a particular interest in Paleo-climatology. He is fired from his prestigious position at Queensland University for predicting massive sea level rises even as his predictions, and much worse, come true.
Karen Whitaker had been partying with girlfriends when the first tsunami tore through Hobart. Trapped overnight in the remains of a collapsed building, she emerged to discover a ruined city strewn with the bodies of the dead, the dying, and the injured. Living in a refugee camp she does what she must to make the best of the new world.