Ertel continued the works of Felix Maria von Exner-Ewarten, a leading theoretical meteorologist of his time who lived in Vienna, and he completed many of them.
Ertel's famous vorticity equation of 1942 belongs today to the basic work of modern geophysics and astrophysics[citation needed].
Even beyond his institute, Ertel made sure that the magazines, Gerlands Beiträge zur Geophysik, Zeitschrift für Meteorologie and Forschungen und Fortschritte appeared and he collaborated on the Deutschen Literaturzeitschrift himself.
A commemorative work appeared on the 100th anniversary of his birth with the title, "Meteorological and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics", published by Wilfried Schröder, with contributions by internationally renowned scientists, Science Edition, Bremen.
Commemorative articles on Hans Ertel by Wilfried Schröder appeared in EOS (2004), WMO Bulletin (2004), as well as in a review in Idöjaras (Budapest, 2004).