The adiabatic evolution of soliton solutions to the unstable nonlinear Schrödinger (UNS) and sine-Gordon (SG) equations in the presence of small perturbations is reconsidered. The transport equations describing the evolution of the solitary wave parameters are determined by a direct multiple-scale asymptotic expansion and by phase-averaged conservation relations for an arbitrary perturbation. The evolution associated with a dissipative perturbation is explicitly determined and the first-order perturbation fields are also obtained. 1. Introdution The unstable nonlinear Schrödinger (UNS) and sine-Gordon (SG) equations arise as canonical integrable models describing the weakly nonlinear evolution of the disturbance field in marginally stable or unstable oceanographic and meteorological dynamics [1-5] (and in many other dispersive physical systems, e.g., [6]). In their canonical form, these equations model the space-time development of wave packets assuming that there is no variability in the fluid medium or in the mean flow or that nonconservative processes are present. It is known, however, that time variability in the background flow and dissipative processes can have a profound effect on the linear and nonlinear stability characteristics of atmospheric and ocean currents [7-11]. Indeed, even if the time average of the background flow is itself stable, small amplitude oscillations can lead to linear destabilization or vice versa (even if the oscillatory flow is, at each moment in time, linearly stable or unstable, respectively). In the context of modeling the finite amplitude evolution of marginally stable or unstable baroclinic flow with, for example, time variability and/or dissipation, one is naturally led to the perturbed UNS or SG equations (see, e.g., [3,5,9-11]). Given the generic emergence and persistence of isolated coherent structures in the transition to turbulence in oceanographic and meteorological dynamics [12], it is of interest to understand the dynamic consequences of perturbations on the soliton solutions of the UNS and SG equations as these represent the saturated states of these models. Huang et al. [13] have presented a theory for the adiabatic deformation of the solitary wave solution to the UNS equation based on the inverse scattering formalism similar to that developed for integrable equations by Kaup and Newell [14] and catalogued for numerous other soliton models by Kivshar and Malomed [15]. The principal purpose of this paper is to reconsider the perturbed UNS equation via a direct perturbation expansion and phase-averaged "conservation balances" following the methods described by, for example, Kodama and Ablowitz [16] and Grimshaw [17, 18], respectively. Our results from both the direct perturbation expansion and conservation balance approaches, of course, completely agree with each other, but contradict Huang et al. [13]. Moreover, in the context of the dissipative problem, we are able to explicitly determine the first-order perturbation field. Additionally, but on a more minor note, ...