数字孪生在航天、工业制造领域已应用了20多年,但引入海洋科学还是首次。通过数字孪生技术,实现真实地球与虚拟地球的融合,构建一个真实地球与数字地球的虚实共同体,这里称为“元地球”。本文介绍了元地球与早期提出的数字地球、虚拟地球、玻璃地球、智慧地球的本质区别,进而突出元地球理念或思想上的巨大突破。基于现今元宇宙BIGANT技术体系,构架跨越地球各圈层的实时、全天候、立体观测感知系统,打通地球系统各圈层动力学模拟隔阂,实现超越现今地球,再现深时地球,实现时空穿越,从而集数字地球、虚拟地球、玻璃地球、智慧地球、现今地球、深时地球的特性于一个共同体,这个深时的虚实共同体就是元地球。这一理念必将催生新的技术范式变革,进而超越现实地球、虚拟地球,开启人类认识地球、探测地球、开发地球的全新方式。在实现研究范式转换的同时,推动元地球的多场景应用,这也必将催生未来的万亿新产业。

Digital Twin has been used in aerospace and industrial manufacturing for more than 20 years, but it is only introduced into marine science recently. Here we adopt Digital Twin technology to realize the integration of real- and virtual-Earth, and build a virtual-real, symbiotic community of real- and digital-Earth which we call “meta-Earth.” We first summarize the essential differences between meta-Earth and the early proposed digital-Earth, virtual-Earth, glass-Earth and smart-Earth, and then highlight the great breakthroughs in the concept or idea of “meta-Earth.” The core idea is that under the current metaverse BIGANT technic system we can realize gapless, cross-sphere dynamic simulation of the Earth system, which allow to build a global, multi-sphere, real-time, all-weather, three-dimensional Earth observing system, reconstruct the deep-time Earth beyond the present-day Earth, and realize space-time travel. By doing so we can integrate all previous Earth models—digital, virtual, glass, smart, present and deep-time—into a community called meta-Earth. This novel concept should bring a technological paradigm shift surpassing real- and virtual-Earth, thus opening a new way for mankind to understand, explore and develop the Earth. Promoting multi-tier application of meta-Earth while making research paradigm shift shall advance the development of new trillion-RMB industries in the future.