Polar ice cores provide not only climate records from both hemispheres in high resolution but also records of the most important climate forcing parameters: greenhouse gases, atmospheric aerosol, solar activity and more. The EPICA records from Dome C (75° S, 123° E, 3,233 meters above sea level.) and Dronning Maud Land (75° S, 0° E, 2,892 meters above sea level) allow us to extend these records from the Holocene back in time to Marine Isotope Stage 20 and to study their variability in higher resolution during the last glacial period. Latest results on these atmospheric ice core records are presented, extending the CO2, CH4, and mineral dust records back in time to approximately 800,000 years before present and allow for studying their coupling to millennial climate variations in more detail. These long-term records enable us to estimate the changes in the radiative forcing of these parameters over glacial/interglacial cycles.In addition recent advances in the interpretation of those records in terms of glacial/interglacial changes in biogeochemical cycles and the bipolar coupling of climate variations are discussed.