The Correlation of Synthetic UV Color versus Mg ii Index along the Solar Cycle

UV solar irradiance strongly affects the chemical and physical properties of the Earth’s atmosphere. UV radiation is also a fundamental input for modeling the habitable zones of stars and the atmospheres of their exoplanets. Unfortunately, measurements of solar irradiance are affected by instrumental degradation and are not available before 1978. For other stars, the situation is worsened by interstellar medium absorption. Therefore, estimates of solar and stellar UV radiation and variability often rely on modeling. Recently, Lovric et al. used Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE)/Stellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment (SOLSTICE) data to investigate the variability of a color index that is a descriptor of the UV radiation that modulates the photochemistry of planets’ atmospheres. After correcting the SOLSTICE data for residual instrumental effects, the authors found the color index to be strongly correlated with the Mg II index, a solar activity proxy. In this paper, we employ an irradiance reconstruction to synthetize the UV color and Mg II index with the purpose of investigating the physical mechanisms that produce the strong correlation between the color index and the solar activity. Our reconstruction, which extends back to 1989, reproduces very well the observations, and shows that the two indices can be described by the same linear relation for almost three cycles, thus ruling out an overcompensation of SORCE/SOLTICE data in the analysis of Lovric et al. We suggest that the strong correlation between the indices results from the UV radiation analyzed originating in the chromosphere, where atmosphere models of quiet and magnetic features present similar temperature and density gradients.