A new scaling law model for propagation of optical beams through atmospheric turbulence is presented and compared to a common scalar stochastic waveoptics technique. This methodology tracks the evolution of the important beam wavefront and phasefront parameters of a propagating Gaussian-shaped laser field as it moves through atmospheric turbulence, assuming a conservation of power. As with other scaling laws, this variational technique makes multiple simplifying assumptions about the optical beam to capture the essential features of interest, while significantly reducing the computational cost of calculation. This variational scaling law is shown to work reliably with moderately high turbulence strengths.