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The Prandtl number is the ratio of kinematic viscosity to thermal diffusivity. It compares the rates at which momentum and temperature variations diffuse. In thermal-diffusion units the Boussinesq equations have momentum inertia multiplied by ${\mathrm{Pr}}^{-1}$; large, rather than small, Prandtl number supplies the usual instantaneous Stokes flow limit.

Incompressibility makes pressure adjust throughout the surrounding fluid. Projecting the linear Boussinesq equations perpendicular to a Fourier wavevector gives $w_t=[k_h^2/(k_h^2+m^2)]b$ and $b_t=-N^{2}w$. A localized spherical disturbance contains many wavevector directions and therefore many internal gravity wave frequencies, rather than one oscillator at $N$. Its shape evolves and energy radiates into the surroundings; a rigid-sphere added mass analogy illustrates extra inertia but does not give an exact coherent frequency for a free material blob.

Uniformly stratified, nonrotating, two-dimensional ideal Boussinesq equations in coordinates $(x,z)$ are equivalent to unstratified rotating equations independent of $Y$, with $(X,Y,Z)=(z,y,-x)$, rotation $2\mathbf{\Omega }=N{\mathbf{e}}_Z$, velocity $(U,V,W)=(w,\sigma /N,-u)$, and the same reduced pressure. The transverse rotating velocity represents buoyancy perturbation, while the rotation-axis velocity represents the stratified horizontal velocity. Matching prescribed forces may have components in the invariant plane, but no transverse component. Physical free surface conditions are not preserved: the physical vertical direction and its normal velocity are different under the mapping.