As the main precursor of the smog and acid rain in the atmosphere, SO₂ plays an important role to the near-surface O₃ pollution. Meanwhile, SO₂ also affects the global and local atmospheric circulations because its strong absorption on the ultraviolet influences the solar radiation dramatically. Therefore, it is beneficial to study the temporal and spatial distributions of SO₂ and their variations. In this paper, the spatial and temporal distributing features of SO₂ at global atmospheric boundary layer were studied by the remote sensing data from 2005 to 2017. A spatial heterogeneity was observed from the analyzing results. Specifically, the high columns of SO₂mainly concentrated on the volcanic eruption areas as a natural source and on the industrial emission areas as an anthropogenic source. The first, second and third grades of SO₂ columns distributed zonally in the whole world. It was evidently affected by the human emissions in the Northern Hemisphere that the boundary line of SO₂ column grades protruded southward on the land and sunk northward on the ocean. In the Southern Hemisphere, on the contrary, the boundary line paralleled to the latitude. From 2005 to 2017, the annual average of SO₂ unit grid values at the global atmospheric boundary layer was increasing before 2011 and then decreasing. During this period of time, the volcanic eruptions led to obvious variations in the summer of 2008, 2009 and 2011. The alteration of SO₂ at the atmospheric boundary layer was associated with the movement of the direct solar radiation point within each year. From 2005 to 2014, the latitudinal axis of symmetry of the first grade SO₂ columns matched with the 15^th day's solar declination of each month, except October, November, and December.