The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration program of Geophysical Monitoring for Climatic Change (GMCC) has operated a background atmospheric monitoring observatory in Antarctica at the United States Amundsen‐Scott South Pole Station since 1972. The program objectives at South Pole, as at the other three GMCC observatories, include the determination of concentrations, variations with time, and other properties of atmospheric trace gases and aerosol particles which can potentially impact climate. In addition, GMCC monitors solar radiation and meteorological factors to determine long‐term means and any trends that could be associated with climatic changes as well as to examine correlations between meteorological and air chemistry parameters. This discussion emphasizes the long‐term GMCC South Pole air chemistry record for carbon dioxide, total ozone, surface ozone, methane, halocarbons, nitrous oxide, and aerosol concentrations. Comparisons of South Pole findings with other global GMCC data are also given. The total ozone discussion includes the results of recent GMCC ozonesonde operations and an assessment of Dobson ozone spectrophotometer data taken at South Pole by NOAA since 1964. These data sets are directly applicable to Antarctic “ozone hole” investigations, and current findings related to this phenomenon are