  We examine the variability in the intrinsic absorption in the Seyfert 1
galaxy Mrk 279 using three epochs of observations from the Far Ultraviolet
Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) and two epochs of observations with the Space
Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. Rather than
finding simple photoionization responses of the absorbing gas to changes in the
underlying continuum, the observed changes in the absorption profiles can be
understood more clearly if the effective covering fraction of the gas in all
emission components, continuum and broad and intermediate velocity width
emission lines, is accounted for. While we do not uniquely solve for all of
these separate covering fractions and the ionic column densities using the
spectral data, we examine the parameter space using previously well-constrained
solutions for continuum and single emission component covering fractions.
Assuming full coverage of the continuum, we find that of the two velocity
components of the Mrk 279 absorption most likely associated with its outflow,
one likely has zero coverage of the intermediate line region while the other
does not. For each component, however, the broad line region is more fully
covered than the intermediate line region. Changes in the O VI column densities
are unconstrained due to saturation, but we show that small changes in the
nonsaturated C IV and N V column densities are consistent with the outflow gas
having zero or partial covering of the intermediate line region and an
ionization parameter changing from ~0.01 to ~0.1 from 2002 to 2003 as the UV
continuum flux increased by a factor of ~8. The absence of a change in the C
III absorbing column density is attributed to this species arising outside the
Mrk 279 outflow.
