Does humidity increase as you go higher in elevation or does rainfall and precipitation increase?

Question

Does humidity increase as you go higher in elevation or does rainfall and precipitation increase?

Answer 1

Humidity does not increase with elevation b/c as you go higher in elevation the air becomes less dense so it isn't able to hold as much moisture as it could if it were more dense.

As for your second question that is a tough one.  There may not be a yes or no answer here.

Answer 2

Do you mean "relative humidity" or "absolute humidity" (like water vapour pressure or mixing ratio of liquid water in dry air)?

RH does not necessarily increase or decrease. But the water vapour content generally decreaces with height. This is  because saturation vapour pressure is high at high temperature and low at low temperature, and the temperature generally decreases with height.

Answer 3

humidity does not increase but rainfall and precipitation does

Answer 4

More than 90 percent of water vapour is confined to the troposphere only.So ,all the weather phenomena, most of which depend upon the moisture content occur only in the troposphere.Hence,in general,the moisture(humidity) decreases with height.But ,within troposphere some variations occur with an upper layer having more moisture than that of the lower layer sometimes because of prevailing winds at that level bringing more moisture from a moisture-source(sea or ocean).You might have heard about'Virga' which is rain that does not reach ground.Because of the dry air(with less moisture content) in the lower levels ,the rain gets evaporated before reaching the ground.This is a case where the higher level has more moisture compared to the lower level.Thus the humidity level fluctuates in the lower layers of the troposphere,but in general,as I said earlier.the humidity reduces rapidly above, a certain level.It may be mentioned that the water vapour is the most variable constituent of the air.

Most of the rain -producing clouds form within a height of 6000 metres(except cumulonimbus which extends upto tropopause) and above that no rainfall occurs.The high clouds like cirrus,cirrocumulus and cirrostratus which form above 6000 metres produce no rainfall as the cold temperature at that level cannot hold much moisture.Whatever rain which forms within this 6000 metres has to reach the earth's surface (except the case of 'virga' as mentioned earlier)

So, you cannot say that the rainfall or precipitation increases with height as all the rain that forms at cloud heights reach the earth in most of the cases.