The Sun's immutable basal quiet atmosphere

We employ limb darkening, spectral energy distribution (color), and center-disk spectrum line strength to investigate photospheric temporal variability. Current limb-darkening curves agree to 1% with past observations taken at different epochs extending back to 1975. Concerning color, from the data of Labs and Neckel (Cox, 1999) we deduce that the solar limb is 1000 Å more red than disk center. But when integrated over the entire disk to represent the Sun-as-a-star, the color shift is only 30 Å. Color is therefore not a very sensitive indicator of full-disk photospheric change. We examine the center-disk time series for C 5380 Å and Fe 5379 Å equivalent width and the Ca K index. The ratio C 5380/Fe 5379 in equivalent width is 0.4221+0.00011 (± 0.00003) y−1, indicating secular change but with no cycle modulation. Converted to temperature this variance amounts to ± 0.028 K. This is in contrast to the full-disk cycle modulation of these lines reported by Gray and Livingston (1997b). Ca K index also exhibits no cycle variation at disk center. Taking into account these findings, plus the small fraction of the photosphere occupied by magnetic elements as revealed in high-resolution G-band pictures, we suggest that cycle magnetic fields thread through the basal atmosphere without physical effect; that the basal quiet atmosphere is observationally immutable to the magnetic cycle within the limits given above.