A new research has warned that fossil fuel emissions will cause problems in technique of radiocarbon dating if no steps are taken to reduce the emissions. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research revealed that growing rate of carbon emissions is posing a threat of creating flawed carbon difference between old and new things.

The researchers behind the study say that accuracy of the technique would suffer badly by 2100, given the current trend of carbon emissions continue.

The researchers explained with an example that by that time the radiocarbon age of a T-Shirt will be equal to of a skull from a stone age man. The ineffectiveness of this technique will have an adverse effect on the work of paleontologists dating dinosaur bones, archaeologists determining the ages of ancient humans, law enforcement agencies making efforts to identify human remains etc.

Carbon-14 is known as radioactive type of carbon that disintegrates over thousands of years. The technique involves measuring changes between fraction of carbon-14 and non-radioactive carbon in an object. This helps determine how long the object has been around. The lesser the amount of Carbon-14, the older the sample is.

"If we did any current measurements on new products, they will end up having the same fraction of radiocarbon to total carbon as something that's lost it over time due to decay. So if we just measure the fraction they'll look like they have the same age for radiocarbon dating", said Heather Graven of Imperial College London, lead author of an article detailing the study.

Experts have to say that the best available option to save the technique is to reduce emissions.