Yhyjyk

The sorcerer's Careful Spell metamagic option states the it applies to “other creatures”:

When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make a saving
throw, you can protect some of those creatures from the spell full
force. To do so, you spend 1 sorcery point and choose a member of
those creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one
creature). A chosen creature automatically succeeds on its saving
throw against the spell.

Does that mean the caster can’t use it to protect himself from the effects of the spell if you happen to cast an AoE spell like ice storm?

Yes, you can't protect yourself

The rule is consistent with using 'other creature' to mean 'you are not included', so with this wording you can't use Careful spell metamagic to protect yourself.

However,

I don't see any problem if you ruled the caster can be included. I've DM'ed and played sorcerer with Careful Spell allowed on themselves and there is no problem at all.

This seems intentional. The wording of Sculpt Spells from Evocation Wizard also suggest the same thing:

When you cast an evocation spell that affects other creatures that you can see, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the spell’s level.

and the tweet from Jeremy Crawford seems to suggest so

Careful Spell and Sculpt Spells work as intended.