Nonlinear progressive wave equation for stratified atmospheres

The nonlinear progressive wave equation (NPE) [McDonald and Kuperman, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 81, 1406-1417 (1987)] is expressed in a form to accommodate changes in the ambient atmospheric density, pressure, and sound speed as the time-stepping computational window moves along a path possibly traversing significant altitude differences (in pressure scale heights). The modification is accomplished by the addition of a stratification term related to that derived in the 1970s for linear range-stepping calculations and later adopted into Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov-type nonlinear models. The modified NPE is shown to preserve acoustic energy in a ray tube and yields analytic similarity solutions for vertically propagating N waves in isothermal and thermally stratified atmospheres.