Climatology has no prophets, no holy texts, no hymns, no holy days, no sacred buildings, and neither proscribed nor prescribed behaviors. What it does have is a wealth of peer-reviewed papers from all nations, accumulated over decades and painting the same picture. The data is multi-faceted, including but not limited to satellite temperature readings; land climate station temp readings; ocean temp measurements; ice cores; tree rings; biologists’ observation of changes in population, behavior, and distributions of thousands of species, and their ecosystems as a whole; and the physical and chemical science to provide explanations for these readings. The community of climatologists consists of graduates of accredited science colleges in universities, and is supported by the vast majority of scientists in other fields (e.g. biologists, paleontologists, physical chemists, atmospheric scientists, etc.). And anyone can read the news – the severity of floods, the the severity of droughts, melting Arctic ice and land glaciers, increase in certain numerous pests, death of forests, and other processes were all predicted by, and are explained by, climate models.

Some places for lay folks to go to get started on becoming informed is
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://skepticalscience.com/

And most good science blogs (like this one) cover it on occasion.

Say Klem, what other sciences do you understand better than the professionals in that field?

cheers