NEMSN5L2 is the Nimbus-5 or Nimbus-E Microwave Spectrometer (NEMS) Level 2 Output Data product and contains surface reflectivity, water vapor, liquid water, layer thickness, temperature at standard pressure levels, surface brightness temperature, and surface type information, as well as the input antenna and brightness temperatures at 5 microwave channels (H2O channels 22.235 and 31.4 GHz, and O2 channels 53.65, 54.9 and 58.8 GHz). The data were recovered from the original 9-track tapes and are now stored online in their original proprietary binary format. The NEMS instrument viewed the nadir with a footprint of a 180-km diameter circle on the earth's surface. The data are grouped into 16-second, earth-viewing frames.

Data are available for the time period from 1972-12-17 to 1973-10-31 with data for about five days stored in a single binary data file. The principal investigator for the NEMS experiment was David H. Staelin from MIT. An advanced version of this instrument, the Scanning Microwave Spectrometer (SCAMS) was flown on the subsequent Nimbus-6 satellite.

This product was previously available from the NSSDC with the identifier ESAD-00129 (old ID 72-097A-03A).