Weather around the world becomes extreme as the sun's light dims. A team of researchers embark on a race against time to understand what's happening.
Weather systems around the world are becoming chaotic with violent hailstorms, dense fogs and gale force winds battering the planet. Complex changes are taking place in the atmosphere and the sun's radiation is being blocked.
In Antarctica, Mike Stowley, a scientist, is monitoring rising levels of pollution in the upper atmosphere.
Victoria Chemengana, a PhD student, is puzzled to find one of her specimens is contaminated with an unusual chemical.
Howard and Anne, who work for the Department of Agriculture, discover local fields with strange looking soil.
And what of the beetles that young Katie has found?
Several weeks later at a weather conference in Bournemouth, the main agenda is climate change but in a seperate seminar the main discussion is about the strange anomalies happening in the environment. During this session Mike Stowley reveals that there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of a rare gas in the atmosphere. The gas has the unusual property of absorbing sunlight.
Soon the whole team are plunged into a frantic race to counteract the malevolent forces which are at work; forces which have the potential to totally transform Earth's biosphere on which all of mankind depends.