Photographer Tomaso Clavarino has been traveling to Italy’s Alpine glaciers to ski since he was three years old. “It’s a place I know very well,” he told me over the phone. “It’s how I knew it was changing.”

Seeking answers, the photographer started to speak with researchers across northern Italy. “They all said the same thing,” he said. “Climate change is affecting the Alps more harshly than other places.” While the planet as a whole has warmed about 1° Celsius because of greenhouse gas emissions, average temperatures the Alps have risen just under 2° Celsius. Since 1960—when the Alps first began to be exploited by ski-oriented tourism—the average snow season there has shortened by 38 days.

Because of this warming and other factors, there are now almost 200 abandoned ski resorts in the Italian Alps: cemeteries of steel cables, concrete, parking lots, abandoned hotels, and deforested slopes. That number stands to rise. If greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, the Alps will lose 90 percent of their remaining glaciers by 2100, according to a recent study published in The Cryosphere.

Clavarino’s images of these near-abandoned places, and the people who remain there, are not simply mementos of a dying region. They’re a warning to the rest of us about the economic and human toll to come as our planet warms.