INFLUENCES OF NONUNIFORM STRATIFICATION ON WAVE RAYS OF INTERNAL GRAVITY WAVE^*

In this paper the influences of nonuniform stratification on the propagating paths of internal inertial-gravity and pure gravity wave energy are discussed by using the WKB approximation method.The conditions for conservation of wave energy,generalized wave action and wave enstrophy are obtained.The necessary condition of instability for internal gravity waves and the equation governing the refraction of wave rays are derived.Two types of critical levels are given.Finally,the wave rays for different distributions of stratification are calculated by using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method.